At least in the case of Ireland though I’ll always temper that impulse by remembering the behavior of the VIs.
A lot of very decent people just trying to invest for their retirements got badly stung.
sure, ring the broker who advised you in the first place on the sale, he was wise then surely he is even wiser now
Yep. And a lot of decent people lost money on Eircom/Dotcom/
Its not investment, its speculation & its called speculation because there is RISK.
The people I reserve my sympathy for; are those elderly people who had ( wisely at the time ), invested in Banks & Insurance companies. They invested in them because they used to be non-spectacularly performing, but solid stocks. They got stung despite trying to be responsible. Collateral damage as it were.
The problem is that there’s a line in the sand at 2001. Before it, investment was boring & only people who wanted a safe haven for their money did it. After 2001, investment morphed into speculation, & everyone & their dogs was ‘investing’ in harebrained schemes.
Wow, really just wow.
Can’t afford Interest plus principle.
When the ECB raises interest rates again, and they will, it’s just going to be a blood bath out there.
How many are just hanging on because interest rates are at an all time low 
With the level of indebtedness that’s around I think even a .25% increase in IR’s would push a lot of people over the edge. A 1% rise? 2%? Total carnage. IR’s are a pretty enormous elephant in the room.
How many of the people who bought investment properties already had decent pensions?
Teachers, Gardai etc?
They already have a bailout.
-Rd
I know a few “decent” who weren’t thinking about property as a retirement investment, they began thinking about it when they saw other people cashing in on flipping. The retirement notion was just more socially acceptable than stating easy money.
My sympathy and empathy is reserved for people who need to but who do possess the means to improve their condition.
There’s enough for everyone but never enough for one persons greed.
I don’t feel sorry for anybody except myself 
Time & time again its been brought up on the pin that the Irish have an appalling amount of personal debt.
Personally I’d rather owe 200k of a mortgage to the bank, than 20k to my CC company. But in this I’m probably in a minority in Ireland & there are plenty of threads on AAM which support me in this.
It won’t be mortgage payments that bring down the economy; it’ll be payments on bling & tat, bought on ‘cheap’ credit.