Bertie

cork said:
The global banking crisis is not his fault.


Facts are - very few saw thru the frenzy. That was the mistake.
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Actually, the facts are that under his stewardship the government ignored any warnings or signs of a problem (despite numerous independent and European voicings of concern) and continued with its reckless, pyramid scheme of an economic policy.

He may not of caused the global crisis, but his policies had a hand in creating a culture of acceptance of those standards across the world. That and the issue that 3/4 of the mess we're in was his and Cowen's making and only 1/4 related to the global crisis.
 
cork said:
Compare unemployment and GDP under Ahern and other leaders.

Facts are - very few saw thru the frenzy. That was the mistake.
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GDP and unemployment always looks good during a bubble. Plenty of people were telling him it was a bubble and he ignored them. That was his mistake.
 
All my old schools got big extensions whilst he was Taoiseach.
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Great! Almost a decade of vast wealth flowing into the exchequer and some schools and motorways were upgraded. Our electrical, water supply, drainage, communications, aviation and transport infrastructure floundered. Decisions that should have been taken quickly were dragged on for years. Decisions that should have been taken by government were farmed out to vested interests. Regulation was non-existent.

What bugs me most though is none of that. They used short-term income to pay for long-term expenditure. It's one of the first things you learn in 1st year JC Economics. It's the golden rule of running a country, a business or your home. They used increased VRT and stamp duty to pay for the growing public service (staff and services). Now we have the same public service but nothing to pay them with and people are suffering because of it. That's a simple, stupid mistake.

There's no way you can tell me no-one thought the party would last forever.

cork said:
The global banking crisis is not his fault.
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Both the report published last week said the global banking crisis had little or nothing to do with our current economic state. Do you believe they're wrong?
 
cork said:
The global banking crisis is not his fault.

All my old schools got big extensions whilst he was Taoiseach.

Compare unemployment and GDP under Ahern and other leaders.

Facts are - very few saw thru the frenzy. That was the mistake.
Click to expand...

I've re-read this nearly 100 times and I'm still waiting to spot the punchline.
 
cork said:
Facts are - very few saw thru the frenzy. That was the mistake.
Click to expand...

Very true.

I hate when FF say noboby could see this coming because there were plenty of people who could see exactly the problems we had.

Unfortunately, however, we had a majority of professional economists, whose clients had serious vested interests in the state of the economy, who did not forsee any problems.

For every international report that said our property market was overheating, there were others that held Ireland up as an example to the rest of the world. Even up to 2006 and 2007.

You had places like Dubai that were like our property boom on speed! So it's an Irish problem and homegrown to an extent, but not uniquely Irish.

Looking back the fundamentals were all wrong, and that's easy to see now. It should have been easy to see then. But it wasn't seen by a critical number of economists who were viewed as credible at the time.

In short, this was no solo run by FF, Bertie or Cowan. The career politicians took the wrong advice from career economists.

I'd lay the blame 100% at the door of Cowan and Bertie if the economic advice they took ran contrary to the generally held views of our professional economists at the time, but that was not the case.
 
I asked if anyone knew where Bertie was and the subject went off in other directions . Anyway , I now know that he was helping to organise his daughter's secret surprise wedding
 
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