I think you could move this one straight into the “what they said, when they said it” sticky.
Who is this optimistic fellow?
I agree.
It’s pretty much saying “don’t mind the fact that borrowing is at record levels and growing at a 20-30% clip each year, look how much we’ve saved because the govt gave us free money to do so!”.
Well we have said many times that we are one of the most heavily indebted countries in the world re private citizens. But we must have the money to pay it back otherwise loan defaults would be gone through the roof ? Have they ? Does anyone have the figures?
That’s why inflation is rocketing…we DONT have the money to pay it back? we are asking our employers for more and more money which will ironically cost us our job when we become completely uncompetitive completely. This country is banjaxed.
Retail sales are up 10.6% year on year
cso.ie/statistics/keyecindireland.htm
Inflation seems to be interest rates going up and they want pay increases because no one who earns the average can afford to buy a half decent place. Im talking about consumer spending seperate from property loans.
Why dont they just stop acting the maggot and give them the pay increases then we can get back to building houses and being competitive wont matter (again).
I see Bertie got 40% he should make it 40% across the board for all sectors. He should also up the minimum wage to 20euro an hour that would really kick start the economy and by economy I mean the construction industry.
Remember, **declared ** income and actual income aren’t necessarily the same thing. I’m no huge fan of Finty O’Toole, but I do know he once contrasted the official figures for those stating their earnings above 50K/year with the sales of luxury Beemers in that year.
There were almost as many luxury beemers sold that year as there were people with such a declared income. This doesn’t even include figures for Bentleys, Lexuses etc.
Either huge amounts of people are eating nothing but stringbeans in order to afford these cars, or there is a massive amount of income undeclared from high-earning people.
My guess is that if there was a serious audit performed on our mid-level businesses, we’d find money is being channelled like crazy.
The off-the-books business in Ireland would appear to be worth €10 billion, at a low estimate.
Possibly that’s why people buy so many houses to leave empty?
Laundry.
Yeah I could go along with what you say. There is definately a large black market. And I still agree with this:
But what Im unsure of is whether its MORE banjaxed or less because of the above!
Lexus is the plural. I like Lexi myself 
Loan defaults are relatively calm - we certainly would have the money to pay back loans if current trends continue - which of course they can’t.
The M3 numbers for ireland are the key here - it’s growing at about 33% per year. Just incase anyone doesn’t know what M3 is - it’s basically all liquid (cash + bank accounts) and semi-liquid money (investments due to mature in less than two years, 3 month or less deposits, and tradable shaes) - it’s rather apparent that ireland consists of two largely seperate groups:
- Those who are borrowing and spending piles - these show up in debt figures.
- Those who are earning piles and saving - these show up in M3 figures.
There are relatively few people in both groups, and the difference is largely one of age - the older and/or higher-earners are earning / saving while the younger / less well paid are borrowing and spending.
Apart from a relatively minor import/export gap, all of the money being borrowed by irish people is ending up in the bank accounts of other irish people - the problem is that from many economic perspectives, it’s the wrong people.
The problems will begin when borrowing slows - then anyone who works in a job whose customers are the borrowing / spending types, will quickly find themselves out of a job, and they’ll stop borrowing / spending themselves.
This is where the pyramid will come down - regardless of the fact that there is billions sitting in the bank accounts of a few 1000 old people.
Where is the evidence for this, Brendan? 
In an age of cheap credit, lax lending standards and near full employment, surely credit-hopping between loans/credit-cards is keeping the wolves from the door to a certain extent.
Now that rates are starting to pinch, I’d imagine it’s going to get a little bit harder to swap that AIB 7.9% loan with 3 years left for a GE Money 5-year 11.2% loan, with a €4k top-up thrown in to clear the credit card too.
Throw in a rate of unemployment that is gradually creeping upwards, and you’ve got the potential for trouble down the road.
Also, to what extent have borderline loans/credit card debts been held off with minimum repayments until an SSIA payment kicked in and saved someone’s bacon? But that was a once-off, which we saw when the rate of private sector credit growth dropped from 30% to low 20’s a couple of months ago.
there was report a month ago that said that SSIA money was being use to pay off credit card debt. Maybe people bought on credit assure in the knowledge that the SSIA money was coming on stream in a few years.
We’ve been borrowing large sums of euros (from frankfurt) to buy property. And as long as peoplke can earn a living from getting hold of the borrowed money (banks, buiulders, govt) things will be OK.
someone should tell the publicans that people still have money to spend on lifestyle.
Save at 5% to pay back debts at 18%
or nerves will be more shattered as the “Surprise” increase in December follows the “Last” increase in September. This sort of article is just getting people’s hopes up.
If you don’t blow all your money on new cars, 35 year mortgages and weekend trips to Prague, etc; it’s fairly easily to save a 5-figure sum every year. If you really want to live close to the bone, then I’d say it’s possible to survive on about €12,000 a year.
Plenty of people live on less than that don’t they? A contributory state pension is less than €11k a year.