Opinion: what's going to unfold in the next 3 years

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Firefly

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We had a few great posts/predictions prior to the housing bubble so I wonder what the current posters think will happen in the coming years given our current predicament.

For me, I can't see how we'll continue to borrow to pay for the day-to-day running costs of the country into the future. I think once the banking bailout is completed (probably via a partial default) focus will then turn in earnest to the budget deficit. I think we'll see deeper integration in Europe whereby the annual budgets for member states will be approved / controlled by Brussells. Perhaps a referendum will be required, but when the alternative is turning off the taps by europe we'll have little choice but to accept.

In the short term, I see more taxes...this year probably a property tax, next year perhaps adjusting the credits further and increasing the property tax. Welfare will also be cut. The final thing to be cut will be public sector numbers/pay/pensions. Sadly, in all of this, the most vulnerable in society will suffer and also for the rest we will see reduced public services.
 
Attrition will cause a drop in the numbers of civil servants.
Increased detection rates will reduce the number of dole spongers.
We will search all the other sofas in Leinster House for other large wads of cash.
 
I'm polishin me crystal ball Firefly.

On the Dark side

Germany will have been forced to agree to unleash the ECB to save the Euro, or the Eurozone will have imploded and split, we'll have a punt nua, and inflation will be a serious problem. Unemployment will still be persistant.

Israel will have attacked Iran's nuclear installations. The ME will still be deeply unstable, Saudi gov't will have fallen or be teethering.

On the Light (ish) side.

The tellytubbies will make a spectacular return to popularity, with Chinese factories spitting them out at a rate of knots.

M.D. Higgins will have fallen asleep in the Aras, or we will have, and like Rip Van Winkle, we'll not wake for a hundred years.

Leo Varadkar will have changed his surname to Murphy so as not to confuse the electorate in his bid to become Taoiseach.

The ESB unions will be considering a strike as they want their wages in gold bullion.

Civil servants will have traded Empire day for Euro collapse day. Cutbacks will have meant they buy their own pencils and bring a sod of turf to heat the office.

The health service will be recruiting faith healers and African witch doctors.Cutbacks will mean you need to bring your own hospital bed,and must check-in online to avoid a €1000 fee, you will also have to clean your own ward, and each patient will need to supply a bottle of Dettol and a mop.
 
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Horusd, I always enjoy your humorous and slightly sarcastic posts, but I really hope the tellytubbies do not make a comeback, my 21 month old would have me driven mad.

Here is what I think will happen:
1) there are going to be numerous large scale sovereign defaults including Italy and Spain (and Ireland); this will either mean issuing of €bonds or debt monetization through the ECB; I previously outlined here (http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=160370) why I believe €bonds won't happen, so this leaves only debt monetization, even against Bundesbank protests
2) Point 1 will require massive monetary inflation which will cause prices for raw materials to really start going up, who h will cripple the middle class and poor
3) due to the monetary bailout governments will not have learnt a thing and will continue deficit spending
4) even large economies like Germany, France, UK and US will get their days of default, ultimately leading to a currency crisis of massive proportions

I scincerely hope that somewhere along the way the public will wake up and force politicians to stop the madness, but at the moment the very opposite seems to be the case.
 
horusd said:
I'm polishin me crystal ball Firefly.

On the Dark side

Germany will have been forced to agree to unleash the ECB to save the Euro, or the Eurozone will have imploded and split, we'll have a punt nua, and inflation will be a serious problem. Unemployment will still be persistant.

Israel will have attacked Iran's nuclear installations. The ME will still be deeply unstable, Saudi gov't will have fallen or be teethering.

On the Light (ish) side.

The tellytubbies will make a spectacular return to popularity, with Chinese factories spitting them out at a rate of knots.

M.D. Higgins will have fallen asleep in the Aras, or we will have, and like Rip Van Winkle, we'll not wake for a hundred years.

Leo Varadkar will have changed his surname to Murphy so as not to confuse the electorate in his bid to become Taoiseach.

The ESB unions will be considering a strike as they want their wages in gold bullion.

Civil servants will have traded Empire day for Euro collapse day. Cutbacks will have meant they buy their own pencils and bring a sod of turf to heat the office.

The health service will be recruiting faith healers and African witch doctors.Cutbacks will mean you need to bring your own hospital bed,and must check-in online to avoid a €1000 fee, you will also have to clean your own ward, and each patient will need to supply a bottle of Dettol and a mop.
Click to expand...

There will also be a €50.00 euro fee for an item of luggage up to 15kg which in the case of females must include their handbag
 
- The Euro will still be alive and kicking and in much greater numbers when the ECB is forced to print more to assist with the current crisis.

- The Germans still wont admit that a large part of the problem is their pensioners tendency to invest their life savings in high risk stuff ala Anglo Irish.

- Croatia will not be admitted to the EU due to a protest vote defeat of referendums on their membership in Ireland and Greece.

- There will be a commercial property crash in London.

- There will still be no real reform of the Irish banking sector.
 
Chris the tellytubbies make more sense than economists, politicians and clergy combined...your 21 month old has it about right !
 
The Euro will no longer be in existence.

The ECB will refrain from going down the road of massive quantatitive easing as the realisation becomes clearer to all involved that it is fundamentally useless in the political arena that Europe currently exists in. It would only lead to giving weak countries the opportunity to go back to the old ways of spending as they want and making their deficits greater.

It may work in a system where there is central control being distributed but this of course is not the case in the EU where individual states govern themselves. And the people (who make up the EU) and are in a bad situation (e.g. Us, Greeks, Portugese, Spanish and now Italians) won't accept this.

Would Ireland for instance accept that central governance of taxation be directed from the EU?
Ans: No - becasue we don't want to lose our independence on certain issues e.g. the Corporation tax rate.

But unless this level of governance is allowed to come from the EU then quantatitive easing is pointless and if this doesn't happen then the Euro is probably doomed
 
Intrade.com are currently running bets on the chances of any country dropping the Euro over various periods

[broken link removed]

There is currently a 70% chance that at least one country will drop out by 2014.
 
horusd said:
On the Light (ish) side.

The tellytubbies will make a spectacular return to popularity, with Chinese factories spitting them out at a rate of knots.

M.D. Higgins will have fallen asleep in the Aras, or we will have, and like Rip Van Winkle, we'll not wake for a hundred years.

Leo Varadkar will have changed his surname to Murphy so as not to confuse the electorate in his bid to become Taoiseach.

The ESB unions will be considering a strike as they want their wages in gold bullion.

Civil servants will have traded Empire day for Euro collapse day. Cutbacks will have meant they buy their own pencils and bring a sod of turf to heat the office.

The health service will be recruiting faith healers and African witch doctors.Cutbacks will mean you need to bring your own hospital bed,and must check-in online to avoid a €1000 fee, you will also have to clean your own ward, and each patient will need to supply a bottle of Dettol and a mop.
Click to expand...

Brilliant!! I think there's an app that predicts the future:D
 
The ECB will continue to topple democratically elected governments and replace them with their own "technocrats"....but somewhere along the line this will lead the crisis to enter a military phase.

The first attacks of the European debt wars will not be labelled as such, even by the western media, (who will mostly act as propaganda machines for the major European powers), but will be under cover of some other pretext.

After the wars are over, and reparations "agreed", we will return to democracy and delight in our freedom to choose a French or German leader for a unified Europe, by means of one single vote every 5 to 7 years.

Once all this begins to play out, most people will claim to have seen it coming, claiming that it was blindingly obvious all along.
 
The break up of the Euro into 2 groups, or continuous high inflation. In our case we wil probably suffer high inflation in either case. The middle classes will be wiped out, if many aren't already.
 
Something significant will happen over the xmas/new year break. Either Germany will return to the DM or we will be using punt nua.
 
Existentially the big question is the Euro. Will die Deutschen Hausfrau agree to open the ECB's bottomless handbag, save the Euro and put manners on the market? I suspect she will, but will want to put manners on the errant kiddies too. No wayward spending of the pocketmoney, a slap across the backside, uppity Sarky led around by the ear and a copy of "Mother knows best (Mutter weiß am besten)" as bedtime reading. Doesn't Mrs M. does look school marmish? Ein, Zwei, Drei...
 
Very interesting article in todays IT w.r.t where it's all heading with the EU.

According to this it seems that Germany wants
(a) a tax on financial transactions (ala something ONQ is talking about forever)
(b) there may be a two-tier EU with different legislative powers
Britian are against (a) as it would have a massive impact on their FSC in London. But it seems Germany (and France and others) are in favour.

I wonder if this is where the Germans are pushing things before they are willing to agree to Quantatitive easing being imposed by the ECB. It is quite possible.

Here's the article anyway - judge for yourselves.

[broken link removed]
 
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