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IRISH PEOPLE HAD a ‘national obsession’ with the acquisition of property during the boom years according to ECB economist Klaus Regling.
Speaking before the banking inquiry this morning, Regling spread the blame for the banking crisis quite widely and suggested that while Irish fiscal practices made the property bubble difficult to recover from, the fault for the problems could not be attributed to one group alone.
Regling, now CEO of the European Financial Stability Facility, co-wrote a 2010 paper for Brian Cowen detailing the evolution of the banking crisis, a paper for which he acknowledged today he had declined to interview the then Taoiseach.
“It was surprising to have heard so many personal anecdotes from ordinary people about property investment,” he said.
Property acquisition as a topic was almost a national obsession.You couldn’t even call it speculation as the buyers all presumed the price of property could only go up. That’s why we use the word obsession.Ordinary people were buying properties for their young children who had not even left school assuming they would not be able to afford property of their own when they left college.
Under questioning from Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins, Regling acknowledged that the Euro as a currency had ‘significant design flaws’ that did not anticipate the extent of such a large crisis.
He further acknowledged that while various national and international institutions had missed the warning signs indicating the beginning of the crisis, as a result there are many new institutions in place to ensure the crisis can not repeat itself.
I didn’t see it coming. As an institution we didn’t see it coming. And so we were not able to issue the warnings that needed to be issued. As a result the ECB has an entirely new wing dedicated to ensuring stability.
In response to Higgins’ assertion that ordinary people had been punished for other people’s mistakes Regling remarked that during the boom wages and living standards went up while taxes decreased and that people who may have not played an active part in the property bubble still probably benefitted from it.
The inquiry also heard from Philip Lane, Professor of International Macroeconomics at Trinity College Dublin, who suggested that if Ireland had not been in the Euro the crisis would have been worse but the recovery would have been quicker.
“The initial crisis would have been deeper as we would have had to face up to a lot of bankruptcies happening quite quickly,” he said.
Living standards would have dropped however as one of the consequences of devaluation is that imports become very expensive.
Lane further said that the government of the time should have built up a ‘rainy day fund’ to guard against such economic calamities.
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Chemical free glue???
@Ding Ding Denny: was just going to say, the glue is probably hydro carbon based
@Ding Ding Denny: You didn’t notice all the man-made fibre tents in the pictures? Yes the protesters are using the goods manufactured for the consumer of today, just like people flying to Climate Change conferences it is not hypocritical, if they can affect change the change they cause would far outweigh the damage they have done by using tents made of man-made fibre or chemical glues.
@Diarmuid Hunt: that’s a big if
@Stephen Brady: It is, can’t blame them for trying, sitting idly by definitely isn’t going to change anything.
@Diarmuid Hunt: But the tents are re-usable and last long term… that’s kind of the entire point.
Thats like you calling an environmental activist who reuses the same water bottle for 10 years a hypocrite
@Vin: I never called them hypocrites, I’m pointing out the stupidity of calling climate activists hypocrites for using modern technology as a means to an end, read past the first line of my comment.
@Ding Ding Denny: hopefully they didn’t use the oil derived glue but that made from animal parts. That way they’d be reducing carbon emissions.
Crusties! Well said Bojo!
Knew they were stuck up!
Bring in a JCB, sorted
A bunch of lunatics
@Gisbert Bayertz: The thing about this is when we’re presented with this message in a calm, rational manner, shown the science in a way we can understand, ideally with a voiceover by Sir David Attenborough. Then we’re sold, no need to do any more.
We’ll happily give up all our plastic packaging, we’ll recycle to our hearts content, we’ll clean our beaches and save our tiny animals and even our creepy crawly critters.
The problem begins with what we perceive to be the usual “rent a mob” telling us that we MUST do all the above, most of us will agree with Boris Johnston’s description of them as “unco-operative crusties”. We see the rich and famous like Emma Thompson who will make appearances at events like this, then think nothing of hopping on a plane to fly first class across the Atlantic. No weeks roughing it on a boat for them.
One protester walked out of a Sky interview when he kept insisting how much he cared about the planet and the people on it and wouldn’t stand by and do nothing. Sky’s Adam Boulton pointed out that parliament wasn’t even sitting so all they’d achieved was to cause disruption for everyone else.
It’s the perceived hypocrisy of a bunch of jumped up kids, each of them with the latest mobile phones and never far from a WiFi hotspot telling the rest of us what we have to do. The majority of those protestors will move on next year to protest again at the next virtuous, noble cause. They just happen to be right, this time.
@Arch Angel: Are you for real? Rational arguments backed up by science have been made for years and there hasn’t been enough change made. The reason you’re seeing radical protest is because there hasn’t been enough action on climate change.
@Diarmuid Hunt: I said we get it, I never claimed politicians get it.
@Arch Angel: I don’t know, I understand that you and I get it but I don’t think we speak for the entire populace. Awareness has definitely grown and is going in the right direction but I don’t think that it is as widespread as you think.
@Diarmuid Hunt: You have a point, in which case it may be fair to say those who are going to get the argument have already done so, some will never get it.
These protests by “unco-operative crusties” who seem to make a hobby of protesting from one virtuous cause to the next are doing very little to further their cause and only serve to antagonise people.
@Arch Angel: Possibly, from reading The Journal it does seem to be having a detrimental effect to their cause judging by the reactions of some people and the amount of likes they’re getting. Then again how good is The Journal comment section as a metre stick for the attitude around this? I know you point at the forever-protesters and there will be an element of that in any protest
, you have said that this time they are right, a stopped clock and all that, but some people will latch on to that side of things rather than look at the merits of this particular protest. Any protest should be weighed on its merit and not on whether forever-protesters are present.
@Arch Angel: except David Attenborough has been asking us for years to change and to listen to the scientists and you haven’t listened to him either so the rest of your point is moot.
Tents wont be up to much when they rip them back up.
Does using public money for personal pleasure get you arrested
A good bateing is required
@Michael Wynne: I hear you give a master bateing yourself.
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