Re: Why bailing out housing market is a very bad idea
3 Things
1. Long term population increase is not as determined by short term immigration.
2. We still have low unemployment in ireland at 6%
3. Around 25000 people at a guess will come this year looking for work
There is only one direction for birth rate in Ireland and that is down. That's because of inflation, wage stagnation and general competitiveness of society will force people to spend more on their kids all round education. When people are stressed and unsure about economic future they will have less kids, simple as that. Doesn't matter if the people were Irish or immigrants, the birth rates all go down.
Immigration will slow because of less work for people and emigration will increase.
Will Dublin's population grow? Yes I think so, how much, hard to tell. People and especially immigrants like to live in cities with good public transport infrastructure and wide range of professional jobs. Only Dublin has even a semblance of this at the moment if you include the plans for the metro.
You also have mentioned a few strange ideas Irish people hold. For instance the idea of affordability equals how much you shoud pay for something. Or the idea that property will always have such high regard as an investment vehicle among Irish people, why would you put so much money in a non-performing or stagnating asset when you could invest in some other market/country. You say Ireland's growth will be linked with India's/China's. How? Perhaps if you said we will open all our 3rd level unis to their students that might be something. However Ireland's growth is still overwhelmingly based on American/EU economy. Asia and Ireland have few real business links.
If India's/China's economy is going to grow so fast why put your money in Irish property rather than there. Plus I personally believe China is due for a correction and from what I've heard about factory closures in Guangdong..it's stock market and property has come down a lot and it's factories are getting more expensive, it's FDI is going to slow down a lot now, what goes up must come down at least temporarily (check America's economic development late 19th early 20th century for an idea..fortunes were lost in the downturns although ultimately it was going to be the world's biggest economy after many decades of ups and downs). China has disadvantages also in that it is resource poor in the vast interior and western region and it's eastern seaboard has already been overdeveloped.
This whole idea of China going up and up without a major blip or two along the way, it's never been done in any other country or sector.
Finally I don't understand the concept of 'bailing out the housing market'. Surely cheaper house prices are better for Irish people in general and make us more competitive, why does the government need to spend tax money on subsidising people with overpriced assets which people willingly bought? Essentially taking money out of everybodies pockets to prop up an artificial price.
