Getting the information from my own company. They have a long term lease which is upward only. Also, no reductions, though they have asked for them.
Don't know where you get your info from but talk to retailers in Dundrum shopping centre and in St Stephens Green SC and on Grafton St to name some and ask them about rent reductions.
PaddyW I think Sunny was agreeing with you and asking me where I got my information!
Cost of commercial premises is way too high here, as is the cost of renting them.
This follows on from maintaining asset value for pensions funds, such as they are.
ONQ.
But he is an experienced shop owner who should know how much it costs to run a shop and the profit margin from his product. So, how did he end up signing a upward only lease, which appears to have no break clauses on rent reviews in the first place?
But he is an experienced shop owner who should know how much it costs to run a shop and the profit margin from his product. So, how did he end up signing a upward only lease, which appears to have no break clauses on rent reviews in the first place?
The OP's proposition fails because it looks at the problem from the wrong end.
If costs are cut then people can begin to live on less, but cutting wages and/or social welfare and expecting people to be able to cope with existing overpriced goods, services and utilities, is utter nonsense.
The main indices of utilities, education and communication all rose according to the consumer price index for 2010.
[broken link removed]
All areas where the state controls the costs - what does this tell us about the potential to survive this recession?
The only places necessary to cut now are the costs of these essentials, with the social welfare trailing this by a year to allow some benefits to accrue.
But the cutting the cost of an over qualified and over staffed and underworked civil service can start tomorrow.
Whether its a three day week or redundencies, we seriously need to get these costs down ASAP.
And confidentiality be damned - we seriously need a survey or our debt on a household by household basis so that we can see the actual problem not be waffled at by poor mouths with income shortfalls that have two or three foreign properties and a yacth they can can sell off to mitigate their borrowings.
Let's get real on this people and not just focus on cutting the social welfare or berating the costs of working in Ireland without doing a bit of homework and realising that it costs a lot to live here.
This is the main problem facing our return to competitiveness, not the social welfare bill - introduce competition to drive down costs and properl assess the cost of government and administration.
When this cost has been driven down, and this includes the cost of our civil service, then you can look at reducing the social welfare.
Doing it the other way is a typical Capital vs Labour strategy that will end up beggaring the weakest sections of our society.
ONQ.
As I have said before, I agree with you. But that still won't help us improve our competitiveness!Reducing wages is only going to serve to ensure that people can't pay their debts, including their mortgage.
This will result in further mortgage defaults which in turn will mean that the government will have to bail out those banks even more
At the moment I'm servicing ALL of my debt, the good mortgage one and the bad stupid personal spending one.
When the day comes that I can't pay them all, I'll stop servicing the bad one. If it gets worse I'll stop servicing the mortgage too. When that day comes, it won't even be worth the bank's time to take the property off me because they won't have anyone else to take it off them.
Multiply me by 1,000,000 and that is the reason why we can't reduce wages
I agree with you but all you are really saying is that we can’t cut wages because debt levels are so high. (snip)
I've been looking at wages paid in other European countries and in many cases Ireland is very expensive to do business. My dad told me the other day of a business he deals with in former East Germany. Their workers are unskilled and earn between €4 and €5 the hour.There is lots of talk about increasing competitiveness etc at the moment. The government is still spinning the same nonsense about “The Knowledge Economy” as if it is a magic wand that can sort out all of our problems. We need to get the stuff inside the box right before we can start thinking outside it. The bottom line is that as a nation we all get paid too much. The public sector get paid more than the state can afford to pay them and the private sector get paid more than it sustainable to make them competitive in an open international market.
We aren’t just way out of kilter with Poland and China, we are way out of kilter with the UK and Germany. As an example I got an email from a recruitment company today offering candidates for jobs here and in Northern Ireland. Accountancy Technicians here are looking for €26k-€28k a year. The same sort of people are looking for £12k-£14k per year in the North.
Forget about everything else when it comes to competitiveness; we need to cut wages significantly right across the country. There are, of course, exceptions, but on a macro level it is our biggest problem.
I don't agree. Prices are a result of supply and demand, and when more money chases a limited supply then prices rise, which is what happened here. Wages went up much faster than actual productivity. The only way you can achieve lower prices is for more competition and production to be attracted. And that will only happen if wages come down.The OP's proposition fails because it looks at the problem from the wrong end.
If costs are cut then people can begin to live on less, but cutting wages and/or social welfare and expecting people to be able to cope with existing overpriced goods, services and utilities, is utter nonsense.
Yes indeed, cost of state services are ever increasing, while at the same time so many other non-state services are actually coming down in price. I also agree that the public sector wage bill has to be tackled ASAP, but I think that it would be better to achieve through a reduction in services, quangos and hence employees.The main indices of utilities, education and communication all rose according to the consumer price index for 2010.
[broken link removed]
All areas where the state controls the costs - what does this tell us about the potential to survive this recession?
The only places necessary to cut now are the costs of these essentials, with the social welfare trailing this by a year to allow some benefits to accrue.
But the cutting the cost of an over qualified and over staffed and underworked civil service can start tomorrow.
Whether its a three day week or redundencies, we seriously need to get these costs down ASAP.
I don't think there is any chance of Ireland by-passing privacy laws.And confidentiality be damned - we seriously need a survey or our debt on a household by household basis so that we can see the actual problem not be waffled at by poor mouths with income shortfalls that have two or three foreign properties and a yacth they can can sell off to mitigate their borrowings.
Let's get real on this people and not just focus on cutting the social welfare or berating the costs of working in Ireland without doing a bit of homework and realising that it costs a lot to live here.
This is the main problem facing our return to competitiveness, not the social welfare bill - introduce competition to drive down costs and properl assess the cost of government and administration.
Well, it is capital that is lacking most in this country and without capital you cannot increase production, which means you cannot create jobs.When this cost has been driven down, and this includes the cost of our civil service, then you can look at reducing the social welfare.
Doing it the other way is a typical Capital vs Labour strategy that will end up beggaring the weakest sections of our society.
ONQ.
Too many businesses are operating with too high capital costs as well as operating costs, which is indeed why prices have only come down so much. I think that a lot more businesses will have to fold before capital costs are driven down enough. As for operating costs, a lot of these are controlled by government.This thing about shops charging too much or screwing us over is rubbish at this stage. There is little doubt that there was profiteering during the boom but I would love to meet any retail shop that can make vast profits through overpricing during the biggest economic collapse in the Western World. If a shop is charging more here than in the UK, it is because the costs here are higher. We still have upward only rent reviews for God sake. Look at the minimum wage and cost of employing young people and the cost of employing people at weekends compared to the UK.
Look at restaurant prices. Am amazed that these places make any money.
Yes, this is the big problem. People only saw good times and took no account for a possible downturn.Because presumably at the time of doing so, he believed that 'the fundamentals were sound' and that the market patterns at the time would pertain for the foreseeable future. If so, he was not the only person in the country to have that optimistic viewpoint.
There are people still screwing people in this recession.
Default, public and private, will be the only option in the long term.As I have said before, I agree with you. But that still won't help us improve our competitiveness!
Yes indeed, as long as it is driven through an improvement in the competitive private economy.My argument is fundamentally different.
There are people still screwing people in this recession.
There are others who are actively resisting helping the least well off.
We need to ensure that essential goods [food] and services [heating, lighting] and accommodation [downward rent reviews, free up NAMA'd housing for sale] are all made available to reduce basic living costs.
Under no circumstances should government try to interfere with price levels. This always ends up in scarcity. What government should do is make it easier for new competition to enter all parts of the market.We need a price ombudsman to ensure that outrageous profiteering is not taking place in all sectors in a recession.
Yes indeed, some of the state and semi-state organisations are screwing us because of their government protected monopolies.We need to ensure that critical business services [phones, high speed broadband] are provided at reasonable rates, not left to a series of state sponsored monopoly players screwing us all.
We need to invest in our so-called smart economy now or it won't be very smart in ten yers time when every other country will be way ahead of us.
Very good points!We need to learn from the transport sector where prices were driven down in air travel through competition yet rose in rail travel, a supposedly "Public" form of transport.
Public transport in general is an unco-ordinated joke.
For example, it came to my attention over the summer that someone visiting here for two weeks could STILL not get an integrated bus and rail card for getting around Dublin.
I don't know about you, but I'm getting back on my bike.
ONQ.
A headlne in the business section of the Examiner today reads- " Nearly half of Irish-based employers to offer workers a pay hike in 2011" according to a report carried outby Mercer HR Consultants.
Bit of positivity about thankfully.
116 firms surveyed including larger Irish organisations , multinationals and smaller Irish Companies.Seriously? Do you think mercer asked the local newsagent, restaurant or any SME? I have not seen the survey but willing to bet that it focused on larger export companies rather than companies exposed to the domestic economy.
A headlne in the business section of the Examiner today reads- " Nearly half of Irish-based employers to offer workers a pay hike in 2011" according to a report carried outby Mercer HR Consultants.
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