Social Welfare to be cut in 6 months also. Here it’s the same as pre crash. But the government knows that if they cut Social Welfare in this country there WOULD be riots!!

Thomas you might want to google the affect on social welfare inthe last 5 budgets.Could be wrong but i don’t think the rate now is the same as 2007/8.

@ Thomas Walsh. Pre-Crash Social Welfare was €208 per week, with 53 weeks of pay (incl. Christmas bonus) = €11024. Post crash Social Welfare is €188 per week, with 52 weeks of pay (no more Christmas bonus) = €9776. That’s nearly a 9% decrease in welfare payments, so I don’t see how that is the “same as pre crash”. On top of that, most benefits have also been cut, including fuel allowances, rent allowances, etc. That’s not to say I agree or disagree with Welfare cuts, but you might want to get your facts straight first.

Paul our awe inspiring TDs are worth every cent they milk from us.Sure evwn our civil servants are worth more than their European countparts.How did Ireland achieve such luck.We must be the envy of the world.The best politicans money can buy.

The big guns in the NTMA are on salary and expense contracts worth up to 1.2 million as reported by the Sunday Indo some time ago. They know how to shoulder the burden alright.

Well lets hope that the EFSF doesnt run out of money too so because the German Courts have delayed given judgement on their constitutional challenge to the ratification of the ESM. The judge stated that he wished to give a …..”thorough constitutional examination” of the complaints, which could last up to three months”.” Pity justice Laffoy didnt take the same attitude and amount of time when dealing with Senator Pringles challenge.

Article re German challenge

http://news.eircom.net/breakingnews/20620353/

Living beyond our means or theirs most of that debt is created by criminal activity of Banks and Developers and complicit members of government.

Yes some people were fiscally irresponsible and many more were responsible.

The people off europe are paying for fraud, this countries austerity is to pay for fraudulent criminal activity off a few as it is in spain.

Most people purchased homes at an elevated price as they had no choice and those ones who purchased more than one home well screw them as they deserve what they get for their utter and total greed.

Two simple sentences and you gave captured the entire issue Gavin. Excellent.

Most of Irelands debts, and nearly all of its deficit, is from funding normal spending on PS pay, social welfare etc, not the banks.

Nobody likes the bankers. But it’s just too easy for some to pretend our deficit would be wiped out and we can increase spending and cut taxes if we magicked away the bank debts.

It’s just not true. But they don’t want to face up to the awkward questions, like how long can we get away with funding 40% of PS pay and SW with borrowed money? Unless theres an international economy turnaround to boost our export income, then not for much longer.

The only reason we are in a bailout situation is because we guaranteed the Irish banks, period! Do you remember Merkel’s speech weeks before the guarantee saying “No European bank will fail”. Yes we have a balancing the books problem but that on its own would not caused a bailout. Merkel and Kenny have worked hard to convince Europe and Ireland that this is not the case and for some reason lots of people fall for it. As David Williams puts it “Europe is pissing down our backs and telling us it’s raining”

Most if our debts, and nearly all of our massive budget deficit (which is adding to our debts at lightning speed) have nothing to do with the banks. Maybe we would have avoided a full bailout like Italy and Spain have if the banks had been kept under a tight rein, but we’d still be forced to cut sending to get our massive deficit under control.

Although of course the same property bubble which blew up the banks also bumped up Irish wages to the highest in Europe. If we wish away the property bubble then we need to wish away the wage increases through the Celtic tiger years as well.

Now that would be the logical option or a rational thinking human being.

These people are sub human morons with one collective mind of Frau Merkel the head of the 4th Reich.

Oh dear what a an intellectually bankrupt proposition. Reneging on our debts would prevent anyone from lending to us while the abandonment of the Euro in favour of a local currency would see inflation of around thirty per cent per annul while valuations against even the Euro itself could be as low as half.
That would scuttle nearly all Social Welfare payments including pensions and return us to pre GMS Healthcare levels where the majority paid for all medical costs without insurance. Wow what a no brainier!

Isn’t it just amazing that Iceland let their banks fail and defaulted on debt, yet they are now doing very well again on the bond marke and are having no trouble accessing funds!!

A debt write off prog. across the Eurozone is going to be the only way to solve this, that or stonking inflation for years to erode its real value.

At the end of the day, the essential problem of Eurozone banks being widely insolvent, and 7-8 states with debt levels that they cannot turn around or sustain will lead to structured defaults.

The money just isn’t there, look at all the trouble over getting a crappy 700bn fund together. This will take trillions and global co-ordination to resolve on a level equal to a war footing.

Ditch the euro for a vastly devalued currency is equivant to massive wage cuts and social welfare cuts.
It’s not an alternative to austerity. It’s austerity on a vast scale overnight.
You wiill have “growth” afterwards alright, in the same way that burning down a forest leaves potential for new trees to grow.
If Irish labour is cheaper, then the public sector is cheaper, and Irish factories can make goods more cheaply.

But everyone with a job or getting social welfare or a pension is getting way less.

If people want that them go for it. But be honest about it.

5 years of hard labour versus consecutive life sentences. I know which I would opt for.

Anyone travelling to Spain on business , holidays or for family reasons in the last ten years have seen the lunacy, the madness and the insanity…( all similar ) as they borrowed and borrowed and borrowed (all similar) to pretend that they were wealthy Northern Europeans creating true wealth just like the Dutch, the Germans , the French and the Norwegians but they were just living on borrowed ideas and borrowed money. Corrupt Mayors granted planning permissions like snuff at a wake (sound familiar) in return for cash and sometimes on land that the developer didn’t own or sometimes the plots were within the boundaries of National Parks. The dreams of these Don Quixotes came crashing down when somebody screamed that the Emperor had no clothes and then they had to borrow from the pawn broker and the pawn broker became the spawn of the Devil and evil incarnate.
This is the true story of Spain and Ireland in a similar context and everyone wants to blame everybody but themselves. Isn’t greed ugly?

And letting others live within our means too right?

It’s amazing that four years into the crisis there’s still people who believe the propaganda that the main cause of it is government overspending on public services, and that the best way out of it is to suck billions out of the economy through austerity (mostly focussed on the people who can least afford it, killing domestic spending in the process) and pour it into the black holes in the delinquent, failed banks that caused the mess.
Spain has, like us, experienced the bursting of a huge bank -fuelled property bubble and all the attendant consequences to the wider economy, and is now following the Irish “solution” to the problem – massive austerity for the poor to pay for a massive bonanza for bankrupt domestic banks and the banks that bought their bonds. It’s going to end in economic ruin and default for both countries.
A country with little over 4 million people pouring €64 billion (excluding interest) into failed private banks is a funny way of living within your means.

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

But on the Journal most commentators are not concerned with the truth.