90% of the mortgages given out here from 01 to 07 were well above the normal level of 3 times the highest earners salary. this is an internationally used benchmark which was abandoned here. yes it was the banks and the state that allowed it happen. but saying that, the majority of mortgage holders borrowed out of their realistic repayable league. no one forced people to take mortgages 4 times the joint salary of the household yet they did. i think to say anything other than people went mad borrowing, whilst acknowledging the role the banks and state played, is the problem in ireland. its denial. yes, you or me didnt go mad borrowing but the we as a populace did. and personal debt levels back this up conclusively. relatively few borrowed or catered with the rainy day in mind.

There is a large element of truth. It takes 2 to tango, for every bad borrower, there has to be a bad lender. The pressure that herself and I were under to buy property was absolutely massive. Everyone was doing it and there was something wrong with you if you didn’t. When 26 year olds are telling you that they have 3 houses bought. What he said on a daily basis. A large no. of people did go loohlah, encouraged by FF criminals who wanted to enrich themselves and their donors irregardless of the risk.

The level of private debt in this state is genuinely shocking, there is going to have to be large scale write off’s on this debt.

Won’t go in to bankers excess here, no fan of them and admire people who shoot bankers.

Sean,
The only difference is I have to pay back my mortgage,credit card & all my other “mad & greedy” bills aswell as the bankers,developers & politicians debts. He works & represents us & he should remember that he is not in front of a blackboard talking to his pupils the world is watching & he has embarrassed us by using such derogatory terms about Irish people.

@Sean
yes, you or me didnt go mad borrowing but the we as a populace did. and personal debt levels back this up conclusively. relatively few borrowed or catered with the rainy day in mind.

That may all be the case, but could you point me at any newspaper article which shows all of this debt being forgiven ? I think you will find them hard to find, because those ordinary joes that did over borrow, are, by and large, paying it back.

Its not the personal debt that is the problem (not yet, although it may be in the near future), its the debt of banks and developers, who have handed that debt over to the state.

Enda would have been right to highlight how wrong it was to allow such personal borrowing to continue, however, he was wrong to infer that Irelands economic crisis was a result of that personal borrowing

What is clear is that this yellow bellied ‘man’ has absolute contempt for his people. Everything this traitor does is designed to appease his European friends in the EPP (European Peoples Party) He will inflict more pain and suffering upon his people to ensure he is elected as the next EPP President by his life long friends Merkel and Sarcozy et al and that the banking elite remain protected and prosper. This man is a idiot, it makes one cringe every time he opens his mouth. Unless his long-time speechwriter Miriam O’Callaghan and advisers Angela Flanagan and Paul O’Brien inform him what to say, he falls apart and waffles nonsensical uttering’s whilst mocking his people even further. He is a simple minded buffoon without principals, morals, intellect or pride, the perfect puppet for his EU masters/friends and banking elite. This traitor will continue to lie because he knows he can, he knows he governs a people who sleep. Last week your portly finance minister (who owns German bonds) promised German bankers that they would be saved whilst Irish people would continue to suffer, he got a standing ovation before he left. How on Earth could any nation elect this man just to gain revenge on a previous government, then how one asks is it possible that he still governs? Stand up, or continue to lay down and be walked upon. It will get worse, this I can assure you, a lot worse Ireland.

Ireland RIP

@Sean finn,
Sean you are mistaken in the calculation of max mortgage levels. The old system of 2 x Main Salary (higher) and 1.5 x Second salary was an outdated system. For this reason the calcuation system was replaced with a system that is used in the UK (possibly the world – but that is an assumption on my part) which is based upon affordability rather than mulitplys of salary. Provided the cost of the mortgage (ie. the monthly repayments) does not exceed 30% to 35% (at a push) of ones (combined salary where it is a joint application) take home pay (after tax) then your income level passed the affordability criteria. That is the system used, the way of adjusting the affordability level was to push the loan term for a longer period ie. 30 or 40 years.

What was a worring trend during the boom was the affordibility calculation was a moving goal post to suit the banker/mortgage lender, if a client was exceeding the 35% affordabiilty threshold the lender would either ignore or would extend the mortgage term. Stress testing was very much ignored too, the lender very often only stressed tested for a 1% uplift in interest rates. Where as now, it is gone the other extreme stress testing is as much as 2% to 3% interest up lift and afordability must not exceed 30% of take home pay following stress tests.

I’m also offended
The media has being saying that the problem is he didn’t say “some” people and that it should be taken in context. While I believe it’s true to say that some people went mad that’s not the point.
His comments *should* be taken in context. The context is that he is saying this to the world. He is saying it to people who blindly invested and to those who are surprised that Ireland is paying them, despite having bet on a loosing horse.
The leader of our country is thereby blatantly not representing the people. He is at a forum that is meant to be about exploring the failure of capitalism under the banner “the great transformation: exploring new models”. To do that you need to accurately analyse the failure of the old model. Saying a nation (or significant amount of it) is mad, is far too simplistic.
Of course, he could well be right – the people might be mad – they did vote for that eejit

boom. finally someone who knows what theyre talkin bout. too much mollycoddlin people here. not our fault they all chirp. but then whose fault?!

I did not take any offence in what enda said, Now I borrowed within means and took stick
off friends who went from regular people to owning holiday homes, trips to exotic places,
So I think he is right alot of people lost the run of themselves. I watched Vincent Browne
last nite, To see credible journalists act like gutterpress hacks dissapointed me, we can
expect it from the scare tactic people in sinn fein and some smaller parties,but fianna fail
should stay quiet,they lost that right along time ago to act credible.

I don’t think every man woman and child in Ireland went mad borrowing, Steven Donnelly TD. was much more accurate when he said that the vast majority of the banking default is confined to a small number of well connected men you could fit into an average sized room.

People bought those apartments because they couldn’t afford to buy homes in their own town or near their family. Prices were inflated by banks who wanted us to borrow more and pay more interest, making them more money. People paid those prices because they had no choice not because they were greedy. I’m not taking about developers, I’m talking about ordinary people who needed family homes. To say people wanted to pay inflated prices is ridiculous, ignorant of the subject, and insensitive.

@Michael – Irish personal/household debt is way higher than any other European country so we have to look at why that is.

I think that mortgage holders who bought during the boom have a certain leeway because it was impossible to buy a house if you didn’t borrow large amounts of money. But I too know lots of people who took on vast amounts of personal debt buying new top of the range cars, having two of three foreign holdiays, buying bigger and fancier TVs. There’s no doubt the amount of cheap money that banks made available fuelled the crash but we have to accept that it takes two to tango.

We constantly criticise politicians for not telling the truth. So are we now going to criticise them when they do? And in fairness to him he didn’t say that EVERYBODY was doing it.

On the outskirts of where?? the a******e of nowhere? or is it even in this State? I have bought no two-bed apartment house or plot of land, but I still have to pay back the W***** Bankers!

True many did go mad borrowing and bought into the boom. I guess a lot of them are same people who voted this fool in…..
The problem for me is that he is doing this on a world stage. If he said this on a domestic stage, it would not be as bad. Instead he choose to tell us it’s not our fault when in Ireland (I know it’s not mine – I’m not in debt) , then go to Davos and say to the WEF that the Irish went mad.
The Newstalk coverage is saying that Enda should have put the word, “some” in front of the word “people”…. not the feckin point. Guess Denis O’Brien is interfering again. (http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0127/breaking5.html).
It’s a disgrace that a Taoiseach should represent Ireland in this way….. and worse, be supported by his Labour bum-chums and the Irish media. I wonder is Denis or RTE going to take responsibility for having promoted the buy-now culture?……….. that’s a rhetorical question… of course they won’t!

@David That’s the “rent is dead money” argument or perhaps it’s the “get on the property ladder” principle…. People paid the prices, they didn’t *have* to, they only thought they had to because that’s what the media, politicians and society were promoting.
@Philip
True many did go mad borrowing and bought into the boom. I guess a lot of them are same people who voted this fool in…..
The problem for me is that he is doing this on a world stage. If he said this on a domestic stage, it would not be as bad. Instead he choose to tell us it’s not our fault when in Ireland (I know it’s not mine – I’m not in debt) , then go to Davos and say to the WEF that the Irish went mad.
The Newstalk coverage is saying that Enda should have put the word, “some” in front of the word “people”…. not the feckin point. Guess Denis O’Brien is interfering again. (http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0127/breaking5.html).
It’s a disgrace that a Taoiseach should represent Ireland in this way….. and worse, be supported by his Labour bum-chums and the Irish media. I wonder is Denis or RTE going to take responsibility for having promoted the buy-now culture?……….. that’s a rhetorical question… of course they won’t!

i’m probably not going to word this properly, but the borrowing level you have just mentioned there, that wasn’t what led the state into dire debt…it was the substantial(millions) loans that banks gave out to developers and the like that caused it!. the people who were going getting mortgages or loans for normal things like houses etc could not have caused such a debt and most likely , in most circumstances where loss of employment has led to their downfall would otherwise have been entirely capable of paying it back. all you have to do is look around at the waste of housing estates that stacked up with borrowed monies, in towns and rural areas that even in good times would most likely not be sold(this a fault of the planning authorities also).

and as for him apologizing, there is no need, as he cant take back something thats out there, because he off all people should know the main reason for the problem and unless he citied that speech of the top of his head(which if he did, fair enough, ease off) any fool would know that saying something like that would/could be construed otherwise.

@Rosemary
Fair Point.
However, people did borrow pretty madly. They wanted to buy “investments” in Bulgaria, Spain, etc., some even looked at their houses as investments instead of homes. Borrowers paid fair too much for their houses.
What annoys me is when people don’t take responsibility for their choice of taking on huge debt. True government, media and banks encouraged people to borrow, but borrowers could have just said “No”.
Being in debt is a horrible thing, especially when you can’t pay, so I do feel for those in that situation. If I were in it, I’d probably just stop paying, smash up the house, loose the house and retain the debt. Then I’d rent…… but I realise it’s easy to say when I’m not in that situation.
Still… point taken. It was the banks lending to property developers that led to the crash

Loads of people didn’t borrow either, or borrowed sensibly so why should they pay for other peoples greed and mad borrowing!

Fine Gael always manage to irritate people through their arrogance.

Was what he said incorrect Réada? If you take the sentence in isolation and all by itself then it is rude but it is not wrong. If you take the sentence in the context of everything else that the Taoiseach said during the question and answers session then what he said is painfully true. Of course it is not the people who took the mad amount of credit out that are to blame since how were they to know what they were doing did not make sense – they are not financial experts – the banks told them they were right, the media told them they were right and the likes of Bertie and Charlie were lovin’ it and told them to buy buy buy sure it will all be alright. And all the time our GDP went up, our employment went up, our budget surpluses improved and only people like David McWilliams were saying this does not make sense (e.g. here is what he said in 2003 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh7x57vGwLI). It did not make sense, it was almost all borrowed money – apparently real money created out of credit i.e. virtual money in a banking system that was not properly financed – in short a “scam”. Individually we did not go mad, but the truth is as a nation we did and it was driven by the banks and the FF/PD government and we did not stop it even though deep down we knew nothing could be so good!

Why can´t Enda represent the best in Ireland, just like Gerry Adams does?

The bould Robert. If a man contradicts himself he’s generally considered to be incorrect. His criticism would have been better aimed at some in his company. I’m sick of hearing him blame FF. He shouldn’t have gone for the job if he wasn’t capable. And incapable he is. How many more government gaffs do we have to have before we say enough?

I always love your sarcasm Neil :)

Come on Réada, what question was the Taoiseach answering? I think it would be dishonest not to blame the government who oversaw the housing bubble when asked for the reasons for the current situation. As it happens that government was FF/PD. We are all sick of hearing about it but FF are going to continue to be blamed until the past changes and that is not going to happen unless we discover the time machine. BTW Like you I would prefer to stop hearing about FF an the time machine would be my preferred solution to the current mess :)

or shot

Robert. He was an elected TD at the time of the FF fiasco. Happy to collect his cheque and claim his expenses. What has he done since to bring reckless bankers to justice. You answer my questions Robert. I asked first. There’s only one answer to the questions I asked and I’ve been given one suggestion which I might be reluctant to take but it’s in my consideration file! Enda Kenny is a disgrace to his nation. I don’t need an excuse to detest the man, and I wish to Jesus he’d stop giving me more reasons.

I don’t need an excuse to detest the man, and I wish to Jesus he’d stop giving me more reasons.

I suppose I could put it to you that, because you detest the man so much, your anger has blinkered your ears from the truth. We borrowed, the money was imaginary….

To answer your questions: If a family member said that I had done something mad I would be jumping with the anger but if what the family member said was true I would hope that I would calm down and realise that I had being mad. So, when I heard what Kenny said I was angry just like I was angry when I heard what David Williams said in the the link I sent you. However, what they both said is true… so….yes I will accept it from the Taoiseach and I will kindly ask him, as I would ask my brother in your hypothetical situation, to continue speaking as honestly as he just did.

Well seeing as we’re all brothers in crime Robert, why don’t you listen to what you’re brother Alan Dukes had to say. He was a lot more accurate in his explanations for the crisis. They’re no brothers of mine. I’d have disowned them long ago. I hope you’ll take your blinkers off soon Robert. I really do. Bye for now. :(

Feck. That we’re in the first line was meant to be ye’re. Bloody auto correct forgets I’m Irish.

Réada, I do not know where the brothers in crime reference comes from and I do not know what Alan Dukes said. He says a lot of things so you will have to give me a link or a hint – I would prefer not to comment on something I have not heard.

With regards to the auto correct, I think we’re is probably more accurate than ye’re since we are all in this molasses together whether we like it or not.

Robert. I say brothers in crime as I have a sneaky suspicion  you may be a FGer.  Re Alan dukes, I’d assumed you’d seen Enda on primetime. Alan dukes also had an interview and he must be following me on twitter cos he echoed much of what I’ve been saying. Forgive me for making the assumption you knew what you were commenting on. Now where would I get that impression…? :P

And Robert we are all in this together but forgive me if I don’t break into the High School Musical song. I’ll be happy to give you a rousing chorus of Bold Robert Lynch tho. 

Now Robert I kinda like you in a FG kind of way and I promise I won’t say I told you so after we’ve won this economic war. Peace! ;) Goodnight. 

oh for crying out loud

its as much the fault of the individual who cannot afford the 100% mortgage for taking it as it is the bankers for offering it or tge state fir encouraging it. responsibility

No it’s not as much the fault of the individual. When you employ a plumber you trust him/her to know what they are doing because you cannot be expected to know yourself. Likewise, when you purchase a home you (should be able to) trust the various parties involved such as estate egents and lenders. We cannot all be experts at everything. It’s how society should work: experts in their respective fields providing trustworthy services so that we all can prosper.

hes definitely in the wrong job!

I think the madness is in ordinary people repaying bank debt is that not mad ?

I can’t believe he’s even managed to piss you off David. Hope is never lost. ;)

‘people’ going mad with borrowing tells about 10% of the story.

I was thinking about 25% of the story but I’m with ya, er, B7584

ah u mean where SOME people everywhere pick up a newspa………. the omission of the word some is frequent and oft ill advised

excuse me paintbrush not newspaper

Will you write his speeches in future. I couldn’t bear even to write for him. ;)

Thanks Réada! :-)

Actually I once met Enda, he seems like a nice enough chap, but he won’t be getting my vote. The bondholder payment is the final straw and he seems hopelessly out of his depth on the issue. Any politician in my area who opposes it will get my ‘X’ by their name at the next election, guaranteed.

Enda the teacher should sit down with Joseph Stiglitz the Nobel Price-winning economist and talk about what to do with the Anglo speculators. He would hopefully ask Mr Stiglitz to write a speech for him…

For gods sake don’t use an “X” Floodzie. Voting in general elections is numerical not alphabetical. ;)

And don’t mind whatever face Enda had on that time you met him – he branded us all greedy and stupid yesterday.

Ha ha, yeah – no worries!

gerry adams!

lol

yep – gerry adams! the ideal way not to sound ridiculous in Davos!

Sean Finn, stand up comedian.

think its time to make these fuckers resign ….time to go kenny…. and take sherlock …veradkar and bond holder noonan with you….fuck of you are a shame to your country …..

as a rule when you find yourself quoting Ivan Yeats you should rethink your position!

this is along the same argument that Tesco selling cheap beer is why we’re all alcoholics! blame anyone except me!

surely it was our employers fault for paying us the money to go to the bank with?
or maybe our teachers fault for giving us an education??
maybe we should never have come out of the cave??

are these all contributing factors? yes

does this mean we have no responsibility?? afraid not!

Rob, you’re missing the point.

The major problem is not the mortgage holders who bought during the boom at unrealistic prices, or even the lenders who lent to them (although that is a significant problem).

The major problem is the 100% bond payments to Anglo bondholders, who bought that debt from the original owners at 20-50% of the original value.

The mortgage problem would have made things bad, but the Anglo payments have us done for, I’m afraid.

but we’re not repaying 100% of Anglo debt! we’ve substantially bunrt subordinated debt holders. the issue now is where they have debt which is subject to a legal government guarantee.

obviously these free market gurus like Stiglitz will say that debt takers should take the losses – but its purely hindsight talk to say that we shouldnt have guaranteed the debt. it hasn’t worked out great – but that doesnt mean it was either stupid or wrong to do at the time.

my point is more to say that there is a spread to the blame here – and if we can acknowledge that they at least we can see some proper debate on the issue – with less of this crap re burning or not burning!

Sorry, I meant to say we are repaying the unguaranteed bondholders.

Lenihan went against good advice on the night of the bank guarantee, and it was stupid and wrong to do it.

Stiglitz is more than just a free market guru, he is a Nobel Prize winning economist who has been proven right time and again.

Stiglitz is a nobel prize winning economist! so he operates in the theoretical mathematical world of his own! I’m not saying he’s an idiot – i’m saying he operates in a vacumn – so he doesn’t gauge impact or fallout from his actions. he just spouts economic realities as if economists have never ever been wrong!