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IT’S A DAY of rest, and you may be in the mood for a quiet corner and a comfy chair.
We’ve hand-picked the week’s best reads for you to savour.
1. Was Rosie the Riveter bogus?
Her image is iconic – the woman in a bright headscarf flexing her muscle, telling us ‘we can do it!’. But for Stephanie Buck, Rosie might not be all that she is cracked up to be. She looks at the problematic nature of the symbol, and what it means for women.
(Timeline, approx 8 mins reading time)
The implication was that, yes, she and her sisters were stepping up, but it was only temporary. Someday in the future, their country wouldn’t need them in the same way. In her 1997 book, Faces of Feminism, author Sheila Tobias snarls, “Attired in new-found overalls and bandanna, she riveted away for the duration of the war, dreaming of a time when she could return to her home and tend to her domestic chores.
This sweet piece by Danny Hakim looks at what it’s like to be an American family that decides to embrace English football. The team they choose to support? Spurs.
(The New York Times, approx 9 mins reading time)
The crowd, already standing, began to erupt, as if the ancient Romans had returned to rule the city and a fallen gladiator was before us. Our section began heaping all manner of abuse on this hapless invader. Fans yelled insults about his backside, insults about his front side, insults about his tender parts and insults about his mental health.
3. Facebook’s sharing manifesto
Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook, lost her husband two years ago. Recently, she’s begun to share more about her experiences around this tragedy, to help promote a book she’s written. But her move is also part of a wider ‘sharing manifesto’ at Facebook, which Bloomberg says can not just be healing, but good for – you guessed it – business.
(Bloomberg, approx 17 mins reading time)
One comment jumps out at her, from a woman who says her husband died a week after Goldberg passed away. “She went back to work after 10 days because I did,” Sandberg says, folding her hands over her chest while seated in her conference room. “I would never want anyone to lose their husband at 47. Ever. But given that it happened, isn’t it incredible that I feel connected to her? After the post this morning, I feel less alone.”
It’s a topic that’s been fascinating – and worrying – people for the past number of years: the rise of the alt right (or the new right, or the new far right). This in-depth piece looks at this movement, saying that it is a ‘powerful counterculture’ and that to call it primarily a political movement “is to wildly underestimate its scope”.
(New York Magazine, approx 67 mins reading time)
To many on the radicalized right, social progress is a zero-sum game in which minority groups and women have been winning at the expense of the previous kings of the castle. Moreover, other forces are ransacking the castle, too — namely, technology, globalization, and financialization. Yet how they believe one should actually go about addressing those problems can be difficult to parse, especially when the complaints are often filtered through 140 characters of unprintable vitriol and hate.
This GQ interview with Brad Pitt has been doing the rounds this week – not just because he discusses in it his marriage breakup and drug use, but because of the strange photos taken in national parks.
(GQ, approx 30 mins reading time)
Do you think if the past six months hadn’t happened you’d be in this place eventually? That it would have caught up with you? I think it would have come knocking, no matter what. People call it a midlife crisis, but this isn’t the same— No, this isn’t that. I interpret a midlife crisis as a fear of growing old and fear of dying, you know, going out and buying a Lamborghini. [pause] Actually—they’ve been looking pretty good to me lately! [laughs]
Anyone who’s been in a long-term relationship will recognise much in this essay, about what it’s like to be with the same person for a long time, and what that helps you learn about yourself, and them. This writer says soulmates probably don’t exist – and her boyfriend is more like, well, a carrot. Read on to find out why.
(Buzzfeed, approx 25 mins reading time)
Because I’ve been in a relationship for over ten years, people often ask me for dating advice. This is dumb, in my opinion. Listen to it when I say it like this: In the past ten years, I’ve only been in one relationship. Would you ask a guy who’s jumped out of a plane one time in the past ten years for skydiving advice? Or would you ask a guy who has jumped out of a plane many, many times in the past ten years for skydiving advice? Think about your options here, people.
…AND A CLASSIC FROM THE ARCHIVES…
We all know how horrible itching is – and what a relief scratching is. But for some people, a mysterious itch can wind up being something that affects their mental and physical health badly.
(The New Yorker, approx 36 mins reading time)
She spent the next two years committed to a locked medical ward in a rehabilitation hospital—because, although she was not mentally ill, she was considered a danger to herself. Eventually, the staff worked out a solution that did not require binding her to the bedrails. Along with the football helmet, she had to wear white mitts that were secured around her wrists by surgical tape. “Every bedtime, it looked like they were dressing me up for Halloween—me and the guy next to me,” she told me.
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Get strapped in because here we go again!!!!
investors are only keen now because of the property purchase incentive scheme; not really due to some organic swing in the market as some would like to portray. I’ve written about this in detail on my blog: http://www.hapennythoughts.com
Its only “here we go again” because a large section of the media are talking up the market.
You love the strap ons
No evidence of that.
As for a bubble, lot of people are having to put down 15-20% deposits and lending ratios to income are quiet strict.
A return to a normal, functioning market may seem like a terror to some but it is just life returning to normal.
Young people, learn from us. Hold your nerve and don’t buy. Houses are still going to exist a few years from now.
Yes but they’ll be completely unaffordable at this rate! Dublin has seen a 10% y.o.y. increase! If you can afford to buy I would suggest you do it because there’s nothing on the horizon to correct this bubble in the medium term! Even If new builds started tomorrow they’d be a few years to market and with the amount of cash investors around they’d do nothing to quell demand significantly! Government and banks want massive house price increases and they’re doing everything in their power to ensure they get their wish.
Ted. Your telling people to buy now because a bubble is on the horizon. So by that logic you’re encouraging people to buy in full knowledge they will end up in negative equity and possibly out of a job if another crisis hits.
Are you an estate agent?
Ted, I remember thinking exactly that “They’ll be completely unaffordable at this rate”, about a year before the peak of the boom. My wife and I got it into our heads that if we didn’t buy soon, it would never be possible, within our lifetimes, to buy a house because prices never come down. That’s why we now live in a godforsaken hellhole at the bog end of Kildare, in negative equity with no hope of escape.
(Godforsaken hellhole is probably a bit strong. I just like that phrase. My dad used to use it to refer to a basement office he worked in)
Like I said “if you can afford it now” it’s a good time to buy! Prices are on the way up with no short/medium term correction likely as demand is completely insane and credit very easy to get! There’s likely to be some sort of fall again in the future but I think prices will likely increase very sharply for the foreseeable future! Neal I completely understand how you feel but what do you suggest people do? Never buy a house for fear of negative equity and losing their job? This is only aimed at people who can afford to buy, I don’t suggest anyone stretches themselves just so they can get on the ladder for fear of missing out!
The best advice I can give to anyone who is buying a home. Buy at a price that is comfortable for you. Don’t forget to add in all the charges and bills like property tax, bins, water, gas/oil, electricity, food and your commute to work. Also be prepared for mortgage interest hikes, changes in jobs, baby’s on the way and any else that will lighten your pockets. There is no point in having a big home if your broke all the time or have to work so many hours a week that you can’t enjoy it. Also to anyone moving out of your parents house. You now have to buy your own toilet roll, shampoo, milk, bread and all the other little things that mammies and daddies usually just take care of. Best of luck.
Ted, no I don’t suggest never buying a house. I suggest holding off for a few years, possibly a decade. You don’t need a house right now. It’s not the dark ages where we all die in our forties and life has to be gotten on with as quickly as possible.
That’s fair enough for those in their early 20′s or mid 20′s but the thoughts of having a family and raising children in rented accommodation doesn’t appeal to many because the Irish market is completely unregulated. If a landlord decides in the morning to increase rent by €500 a month then there’s nothing to stop them. The rental market is as out of hand as the sales one so there’s little rationale to holding out for 10 years in such a scenario. Also banks are a little more cautious about giving out 25 year mortgages to people in their 40′s than they are to people 10 years their junior.
I too am in a hole I cannot get out of. This buying lark is a myth of the greedy. They want more handy money but this time many of us know exactly what is going on.
In urban Ireland there is a shortage of family homes. In rural Ireland there is a surplus.
It is 7 years since the property crash and we’ve had next to no houses built since.
It’s a ‘dead cat bounce’ in a very troubled economy. The Irish economy is bankrupt. We will be a very long time coming out of this. Have you ever met an estate agent who said it wasn’t a good time to buy?
There is a wall of money out there though that is looking for homes or investments. Deposits are very big or the entire price is paid in cash.
We can keep churning out the béal bocht or we can accept that there are a lot of people here who are still doing very well.
I know 3 people who have bought houses in the last year, all put down deposits of around 100k, all are in their 30′s. All are great savers and grafters.
Needs regulation- cash buyers and investors are pricing first time buyers out of the market. Me included.
what regulation do you suggest? Does an individual not have the right to sell his property to the highest bidder?
What can the government do ? You should buy the best house you can afford and when you can trade up.
Paidraig you regulate the other side to try and quell speculator interest in the market possibly by bringing in penal tax rates on profits on non PPR homes but you must be careful to not distort the rental market. Theoretically if house prices were more affordable there might be a lower demand for rental space!
What can the government do? See my full reply below. Besides that, ‘resign’ came to mind.
Yes but capital gains shud be sky high for investors fending off the vultures and allowing people who want to buy a home for themselves to do so without having prospectors pushing them out of the market again
Spot on Brian.
Every single penny over the €100,000 guaranteed in Irish Bank Accounts is coming out and going into property (mostly residential)
We are talking about 10′s of Billions here.
The way these investors are thinking is
(1) Leave your millions in the bank, get no interest and take the chance that the government seizes it.
or
(2) Buy a few gaffs (at auction so you get title within a month) and the worst case scenario is that you lose a bit of your money but you get year on year rental income to compensate.
Your family’s Housing/Shelter has turned into a bank/slot machine/atm/piggybank/mattress for cash hoarding elites and the state’s government/NAMA/banks are incentivising/cheerleading it.
What we need is about 25k houses built a year just to meet annual demand.
We’ve had 7 years of 1/3 of that being built as the excess stock of the Celtic Tiger that could be used up, was.
Family homes in Galway, Dublin and Cork cities are as rare as hens teeth.
@ SeanieRyan
25,000 houses?
And how many apartments : )?
I know what you’re saying,
but the few bust joke-banks left, can’t/won’t give owner occupier mortgages on the current available housing stock,
let alone 25,000 more homes,
which will no doubt be overpriced.
How about shifting the 10′s of thousands of properties that NAMA and our jokebanks have on their books first?
Even though there will have to be an auction every single day for decades to shift that stockpile.
There may be trouble ahead.
Cheap publicity for auctioneers,love Galway but
if there is such a demand for people wanting to
to live in Galway why is the airport closed?
The airport is closed because the improvement in our road network has rendered it obsolete.
Sat Singh, Gakway is a town comprised of one street and a square, and a dilapidated seafront, Salthill, that is falling apart. The rest of Galway is comprised of old town housing circled by poorly built estates, owned, in the main by greedy landlords looking to make a quick buck.
I’ve lived and worked here for the last 15 years, and though not a Galway man, I’m disgusted at what drives this town on. Yet again, a Galway business gets free advertising whilst contributing to the poorly maintained eyesores that blight the suburbs. Unfortunately most visitors are unaware of this and buy into the lie that is Galway.
It was very expensive to fly out of Galway airport when it was operational. Shannon or Knock serve Galway better.
It’s was heavily subsidised by grants, Kennedy used the old gaeilge card for topping up & left when he got a cushier number on tv or wherever they’d have him.
Coincidence that this article is out the day before the auction?Create hysteria is the objective. I have seen this first hand in Galway in last 6 months. Auctioneers telling me there is nothing coming down the line,very few properties coming up, then all of a sudden there are these huge auction days with 40 plus houses for sale. This is strategic selling by auctioneers to create an atmosphere of urgency. And articles like this are all part of the plan. If the possible rental income for the house doesn’t match the mortgage repayments don’t buy it.
Couldn’t agree more – your comment is better than the article.
the recovery is not real
http://bregsforum.wordpress.com/2014/06/26/recovery-is-still-worse-than-the-1980s-crisis/
Cash buyers make me sick.
What else will you buy one with jelly beans?
Same s*** again
The beginning of another property bubble, surely this isn’t a bad thing at all :) thats the thing about bubbles, eventually they go pop!!!
I’m going to assume you’re too young to remember the pain and suffering caused by the last recession, lucky you! Of course to anyone with a basic grasp of economics the best way to stop a bubble from popping is to prevent it from happening in the first place! If only the Government weren’t directly against the public we’d have a hope but their wish is to create another ridiculous property market so they will get it!
Loads of people are in negative equity so they can’t sell their houses. But the population grows and families grow so there’s always a demand for houses. After years of depressed sales, now people are beginning to want to buy – but many who might want to sell can’t because of negative equity.
So now we have pent-up demand and low supply. And until negative equity gets addressed, this is how it’s going to be.
And how do you address negative equity? My car is worth a quarter of what I paid for it five years ago. Give me stuff!
Negative equity is “addressed” by people paying their mortgages.
?? Many people in NE pay their mortgages Padriag.
In the Bank and Governments minds the only way to deal with negative equity is to drive property prices back up. It’s a short term solution but hey who cares about that, they’re answerable and accountable to nobody.
Also would help if banks and people came to an agreement where after a voluntary sale the residual debt was written off ..
@patlyndo I never suggested otherwise- There is no link between NE and the inability to pay a mortgage.
@thomas That would help the mortgage holder but no one else. In individual cases of unsustainable debt it’s a valid option, but not in any way for purely Negative Equity cases
Fair enough ,Padraig .. I suppose it would help to stop the next generation of buyers from going into serious negative equity …
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. In the words of Flava Flav “Don’t Believe The Hype”.
Give it a few months, and I can just hear Enda’s speech, ‘Sitting on the sidelines, cribbing and moaning is a lost opportunity. I don’t know how people who engage in that don’t commit suicide because frankly the only thing that motivates me is being able to actively change something,’
Here we go again. The management of housing has to controlled. Law 1 – no individual or group of individuals can own more than 2 properties for habitation without facing punitive taxation. Law 2 – banks banned from lending under mortgage conditions for ‘homes’ – market to be under the control and management of Building Societies only and their old rules of operation. Law 3 – everyone needs a roof over their head so the state will intervene directly in the provision of social housing and the setting of all private rents based on rating valuations
There ya are now – we’re out of the cave at last. :) Nurse, oh Nurse? Where’s me pills?
Ooh look!
A property article on the journal.ie
Fancy that :-)
Another Journal article about property, You are trying to build up hype and the reason that is,is because TheJournal is owned by the same company that makes a lot of money from property. Keep pushing your transparent agenda.
And there we have the obligatory daily property article.
Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Buyer beware.
Once again, demand being over exaggerated by Auctioneers and they get off as if they are not part of the problem. They bare no responsibility for their actions. They are keeping house prices artificially high in certain towns around the country .
I don’t think they had social housing or regulation during Brehon law
Because greed.
have your say