‘For nearly 15 years, the world watched with a mixture of fascination and awe as Ireland transformed itself from one of Europe’s poorest countries into one of its wealthiest, earning itself the nickname the Celtic Tiger.

But the roar of yesteryear has turned to a whimper as the economy has been poleaxed by the global slump and a housing crash that has been worse than Britain’s. Prices are down 30%, compared with around 16% in the UK.

So bad have things become that the Republic’s third largest lender, Anglo Irish Bank, was nationalised last Thursday amid a crisis of confidence that saw large-scale depositor withdrawals. A day earlier, in an atmosphere described as febrile by analysts, the Irish government was forced to deny that it was seeking emergency help from the International Monetary Fund.

The deepening crisis in Ireland is underlined by the jobless numbers: unemployment is forecast to hit 400,000, or 11% of Ireland’s four-million population, by the end of 2009.

Everywhere, the trappings of wealth and confidence are beginning to fade: Dublin airport used to be littered with private jets and luxury cars outside the terminal, but there are fewer nowadays as the country edges towards a new era of austerity.

At the Curragh racecourse, costly expansion has been put on hold to conserve cash, while from Limerick in the south-west, to Louth in the north-east, businesses are shedding labour and, in some cases, going into liquidation.

The rot has set in remarkably quickly: it is hard to believe that unemployment was just 4% at the end of 2007, or that GDP growth could plunge to minus 4% in 2009 against growth of 6% two years ago. "We are facing extreme short-term difficulties," says Rossa White, chief economist of Davy, the Irish stockbroker.

Last week, John Browett, chief executive of electrical goods retailing giant DSG, said that while the British recession was following past norms, the situation was "more serious" in Ireland.’

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jan/18/ireland-economy-crash

politics
you are asking for it!!

Why is that relevant to the thread title?

Gordon Bronwn isn’t prime minister in IRELAND is he?

I read an article recently about the property crash in Ireland. There is a staggering rate of 1 in 7 properties unoccupied in Ireland. Yes, **** me, that is ONE in SEVEN. I believe this blows most figures out of the water in Western Europe. In comparison, here in the UK we have a something like 1 in 32 or 33 properties unoccupied. In Dublin, lots of the immigrants have gone home, leading to a crash in the rental market, meaning shedloads of amateur investors are left with empty second properties that they can neither sell nor rent.

If you think we went mad with property for the last decade or so, my compatriots at home left us for dead. And now, they’re seeing the results of a bubble that was always going to burst. I can tell you, from talking to some of them, it ain’t pretty over there…not pretty at all.

I’ve never blamed Gordon Brown for the current financial crisis.

I’ve always blamed Thatcher.

(Puts kettle on, stew on stove, plans for long night ahead…)

PeterPoddy – lots of people on here seem to think that the current financial crisis is almost entirely of Gordon Brown’s making – I am just pointing out that many other countries are suffering just as badly if not worse.

not quite grumm. Most sensible people dont think the current crisis is of his making. The additional time its going to take to get UK plc out of this mess than it could have done, however, IS very much his making.

What that’s got to do with Ireland I dont really see. Ireland simply have a worse case of the bubble than we do. Whether they pull out of it faster than the UK through will be a real test of comparative policies.

Why is that relevant to the thread title?

Gordon Bronwn isn’t prime minister in IRELAND is he?

I think the OP is trying to point out that the failure is in the system not the individuals.

Of course he’s right, but I still blame Gordon Brown.

Gordon Brown chose to enthusiastically support free-market fundamentalism for the last decade or so – he didn’t have to. And in fact he still supports it, leaving the banks to decide what to do with our money, and introducing further privatisation.

And for those who believe that the Conservatives would had done any better, just look at the state that the US economy after 8 years of pure unadulterated conservatism.

I’m with you there ernie_lynch.

Also, Gordon Bronwn isn’t the Prime Minister of anywhere 😉

Most sensible people dont think the current crisis is of his making.

Are you trying to say that CaptainFlashHeart isn’t sensible ?

my recession is better than your recession?

good to see the competitive spirit is still alive…

‘The additional time its going to take to get UK plc out of this mess than it could have done, however, IS very much his making.’

Well quite possibly, but also possibly not. Not sure why everyone suddenly reckons to be a financial expert and to be able to predict the future.

Its that old devil called "Greed"

Not sure why everyone suddenly reckons to be a financial expert

A batchelors and a masters degree in economics and finance and 10 yrs in economic analysis. Not quite a sudden reckoning.

Not sure why everyone suddenly reckons to be a financial expert and to able to predict the future.

Hehe …… you don’t know who Stoner is, do you ?

I can’t recall Stoner predicting this recession mind 🙄

Haha – ok you got me. Do you also have a degree in futurology? ;p

BTW wasn’t really talking about you specifically – but lots of people seem to now be going on about the economy like they are some kind of expert, while regurgitating bits of David Cameron’s speeches.

Do you also have a degree in futurology?

All economists can predict the future – it’s all down to highly complex mathematical equations – don’t you know ?

evenin’ GG.

I agree generally about your comment about everyone suddenly becoming economists. Bit like Gordon and his new found love of keynsian policies 🙂

As for predicting the current recession, my hands are up, I certainly didnt predict it. I did however predict the top of the real estate market – in the commerical sector it was becoming blindingly obvious that transactions were no longer based on the fundamentals and were being purely driven by the volume of money seeking investment (property is my particular field), but I dont have the skills to state how low I think it will go although my gut feel is -25% residential, -30% london office rents, -10% prime retail rents, -35-40% non-prime commercial capital values, -20-35% prime commercial capital values.

As an illustration, one project Im working on – £600m shopping centre was originally valued at c.5.0% yield is now being analysed closer to 6.75%, £450m.

Oh aye? Its not the Centrol Miller development in Lancaster that’s just gone to public enquiry by any chance is it?

Nope, but Im aware of the problems that one is having 😉

wont answer any more guesses as I really cant have you lot working it out 🙂

I see you’ve edited your post now – interesting! 😉

lots of people seem to now be going on about the economy like they are some kind of expert

At least some of us were complaining about Brown’s policies based on the theory of continual boom whilst we were still in a boom though, and aren’t new experts (if not formally educated economists). Plenty of predictions of eventual bust even if most didn’t predict when or how it was going to happen (even most supposed experts didn’t manage that). You didn’t even need to work in the field like Stoner to appreciate that property inflation was an unsustainable bubble (worth bearing in mind that in the context of the inflation this is hardly a huge correction – values probably won’t drop below what they were at the start of the century).

Wasn’t it that financial wizard Brown who decided to sell off most of Britains gold reserves a few years back when gold’s value was at a record low? Reserves that could well have come in handy now that gold is at a record high.

IIRC his reasoning at the time was that the stability of the banking system meant we no longer needed to hold reserves of commodities. Gordon Brown is certainly not wholly responsible for the current mess but I for one certainly don’t trust him to help us out of it.

Yes even I knew that property inflation was an unsustainable bubble, but what was Gordon Brown going to do about it? No-one wants to be a party pooper when everyone is apparently making money do they.The main mistake he seems to have made was claiming to have brought and end to boom and bust, what a ridiculous statement.

Anyone remember learning about the South Sea Bubble in history lessons? Nothing much changes really.

Wasn’t it that financial wizard Brown who decided to sell off most of Britains gold reserves a few years back when gold’s value was at a record low? Reserves that could well have come in handy now that gold is at a record high.

This is probably the number one most often-quoted fact by people who read it in a newspaper and think it makes them sound like they know lots about the economy. 😉

The gold thing is hardly worth mentioning, given how much of a drop in the bucket the sums involved were compared to the billions going out now – a good example of a lack of financial judgement though, particularly given he warned the markets in advance so as to give the price a chance to dive. The thing is it is worth mentioning in the context that he doesn’t seem to have learned and is suggesting now the idea of selling of assets whilst their value is rock bottom.

Yes even I knew that property inflation was an unsustainable bubble, but what was Gordon Brown going to do about it?

Realise what lots of the rest of us did that it was an unsustainable bubble, and not go round borrowing lots of money on the basis of projected future government income based largely on said bubble.

I do not, and would not claim to know any more about the economy than I do about astrophysics.

I work as a goldsmith and have done for 20 years so have had to follow the price of my raw materials throughout.I also never read a newspaper, and as aracer say’s was using the event as an illustration of the mans judgement. As I say I know sweet FA about economics so as a total lay-man I can safely say I knew he was making a huge mistake at the time.
#goes off to search grumms past posts for an opportunity to be equally patronising :wink:#

I understand Brown was the first of the G8 to formally recommend the expansionary economic policies that all of the others have now adopted. Germany, the largest European economy, has committed more money than the UK. Are all of these experienced economic brains wrong?

As for Gordon Brown becoming a recent advocate of Keynsian economics this is not true. He maintained the spending plans of his predecesor (Ken Clarke) in 97 and we all benefited from the increase in tax receipts during the tail end of the 90’s. He then expanded public spending ahead of economic growth at the time, all good Keynsian stuff!!

The downturn in “bubbles” cannot be predicted by the people who are in them, because of the rules of Capitalism. For instance if you’d have walked in on the Board of HBOS a few years ago, and suggested that they might like to look again at their investments, and perhaps turned the wick down a bit, they’d have asked you to cart yourself off to the funny farm. Because every-one was doing it, every-one had to do it. Trying to blame one man or one bank misses the point by miles and miles.

A batchelors and a masters degree in economics and finance and 10 yrs in economic analysis. Not quite a sudden reckoning.

Is that like a degree in homoeopathy?

Yes. It’s exactly like a degree in homeopathy.

Bet lots of people with lots of fancy economics qualifications and years of experience are in the sh!t right now. 😛

That explains a lot.

Realise what lots of the rest of us did that it was an unsustainable bubble, and not go round borrowing lots of money on the basis of projected future government income based largely on said bubble.

Where does Government spending come in? The rise in house prices is dependant on lots of factors not really government policy related. Interest rates are a significant factor (or where) in determining the cost of borrowing. Once in independant hands they could not be used as an economic lever as they were used by the previous Tory government.

Yes. It’s exactly like a degree in homeopathy.

Surely not – isn’t the homeopathy industry full of unliscenced, badly qualified people overcharging their customers for spouting a load of nonsense at them
-Ahh hang on 😉

LOL at Billyboulders!

Stoner’s much less qualified than a homoeopath. All he can do is measure the height of a tree’s nipples…

🙂

Shouldnt you be answering the telephones nick?