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Updated at 10.30pm
A REPUBLICAN HAS been told by senior politician Paul Ryan that he should apologise after he allegedly “bodyslammed” a reporter for The Guardian yesterday on the eve of the state’s hotly contested vote.
The altercation between Greg Gianforte – who is running for the state’s only congressional seat in today’s special election – and journalist Ben Jacobs took place at a campaign event at Gianforte’s headquarters in the city of Bozeman, Montana, The Guardian said.
“I think he should apologise,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said when asked about Gianforte’s confrontation with reporter Ben Jacobs, who says he was “bodyslammed,” or violently thrown to the ground.
That is wrong and should not have happened.
But he declined to say whether Gianforte would be welcome in Congress should he win the special election.
Assault
“Following multiple interviews and an investigation by the Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office it was determined there was probable cause to issue a citation to Greg Gianforte for misdemeanour assault,” said a statement from Sheriff Brian Gootkin released late last night.
The Republican is now slated to appear in county court prior to 7 June, the statement said, with a possible penalty of up to six months in county jail and a $500 fine.
Gootkin also disclosed that he had in March donated $250 to Gianforte’s campaign.
The development heightened the drama of an already highly scrutinised special election in the traditional Republican stronghold of Montana, which has proved to be a far closer race than expected.
It is seen as a key test of whether rural voters who helped send Donald Trump to the White House in November are sticking with him.
The altercation took place after Jacobs asked a question about health care.
‘Get the hell out!’
The reporter posted audio of the incident in which Gianforte appears to say: “The last time you came in here you did the same thing. Get the hell out of here!”
Police said they questioned four witnesses to the incident.
Others at the event corroborated the version of events – including a crew from Fox News, the most viewed US cable news channel and a favourite of conservatives.
In a firsthand account published on the network’s website a Fox reporter said that at one point “Gianforte grabbed Jacobs by the neck with both hands and slammed him onto the ground behind him”.
Gianforte’s campaign issued a statement offering a starkly contrasting account, saying the incident took place when the candidate was giving a separate interview in a private office.
“The Guardian’s Ben Jacobs entered the office without permission, aggressively shoved a recorder in Greg’s face, and began asking badgering questions,” the statement said.
Jacobs was asked to leave. After asking Jacobs to lower the recorder, Jacobs declined. Greg then attempted to grab the phone that was pushed in his face. Jacobs grabbed Greg’s wrist, and spun away from Greg, pushing them both to the ground.
It’s unfortunate that this aggressive behaviour from a liberal journalist created this scene at our campaign volunteer BBQ.
On Jacobs’s audio, businessman Gianforte is not heard asking him to lower his microphone.
When Jacobs asks for the names of those present, saying he would go to the police, he is told, “you gotta leave”.
‘Deeply appalled’
Following the incident two of the state’s major newspapers swiftly pulled their endorsements for Gianforte. The effect of the altercation on the race remained unclear, however, as many in the state have cast early ballots.
Jeremy Johnson, an associate professor of political science at Carroll College in the state capital Helena, earlier told AFP that the lead once enjoyed by Gianforte, who is running against Democrat Rob Quist, “has diminished in polling so much that it’s miniscule”.
The platform of Quist, a local folk singer and political newcomer, has garnered support from left-wing activists as well as backing from one-time presidential contender Bernie Sanders.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has called on Gianforte to resign, saying he is “unhinged”.
“Greg Gianforte must immediately withdraw his candidacy after his alleged violent assault of an innocent journalist,” spokesman Tyler Law said in a statement.
Further, (House Speaker Paul) Ryan and the National Republican Campaign Committee should not waste another minute before publicly denouncing their candidate and apologising for the millions of dollars they spent on his behalf.
The Guardian’s US editor Lee Glendinning said the newspaper was “deeply appalled by how our reporter, Ben Jacobs, was treated in the course of doing his job as a journalist while reporting on the Montana special election”.
We are committed to holding power to account and we stand by Ben and our team of reporters for the questions they ask and the reporting that is produced.
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What a joke! I pay all my bills and didn’t get into debt, but have to pay the debts of all the people who got in over their heads. Not going to happen.
I too pay my bills and have no mortgage – I pay rent though – but I can see that overall, this could be very good for the economy. Writing off debt will return us to a situation where people have more money in their pockets and will then spend more. It will also help reduce suicide rates, which would be a good thing.
There is a huge problem and we need to tackle it rather than just ignoring it for the next few years while it gets worse – that’s what Europe is currently doing with the financial crisis and why its being dragged out so much.
Fully agree, if someone has gotten themselves into debt they should be held responsible for it.
Your reading it wrong.
Besides that, you had no trouble paying of the debts of the richest 5000 developers in Ireland, many of whom got to keep their homes, fancy cars etc, but do have a problem with this even though it will only cost a fraction of what has already been paid.
It is going to happen irregardless of whether we like it or not. It’s down to basic maths. We have to stop trying to defy reality because as a country we are scared witless over the neighbours getting one over us.
The economics of self defeat.
I probably should have said, didn’t get into big debt that I couldn’t ever repay. I also have a mortgage, but not looking for anyone else to pay it. If it’s written off, who do you think pays for it? It doesn’t just dissapear! Muggins here and the rest of the squeezed middle will, that’s who. There’s only so much squeezing you can do!
Oh well aren’t you lucky Billy that you didn’t loose your job when the country went bust. Same can’t be said for thousands of others who now, for the first time in their lives, find themselves unemployed due to no fault of their own! Happy to bail out the banks but not the people is it? Walk a mile in someone elses’ shoes before judging them.
I pay all my bills, I’ve never been in debt and I’m lucky enough to have a great job that puts me in a good financial standing, but I have no objection to helping those people that really need it. I know of so many families, my parents included, that are struggling to pay their mortgage, keep food on the table and keep their small children warm throughout the winter. How can you can sit their and judge them and cast them to the scap heap? Imagine if you had three young children and a mortgage which is easily affordable on your current wages, say you’ve worked your whole life and you took out a modest mortgage ten years ago – now throw in unemployment and we’ll see how you cope on the dole even with the most modest mortgage! This is the horrible reality for thousands of families in Ireland and nothing is being done for them – how is this right exactly?
Ronan_Murphy Who said we had no problem paying off the bank debt? What a presumption. That’s what bankrupted the country, along with the greedy average joe. I’m paying over the odds for it all, as it is, so not paying for everyone else to have thier debt, so they can go back to a cushy life, while I continue to struggle.
Billy we have already paid for it. The debt right off was calculated in the Bank stress tests and the expected amount transferred to the banks. Like others I’m not in trouble and still have a job but I do think as a society we do have to help those who are in a very deep hole and cannot get out. As others have mentioned we have bailed out developers & banks why not help our fellow Irish citizens who are in trouble. Surely a more worthy cause than were most of the money has gone?
poppysmith You know nothing about me. I’ve lost jobs, worked all over the world, and have re-trained and upskilled, and have been careful with money, so save me your bleeding hear lecture. I’ve also seen all the people who wasted and squandered loads of money. There should be some system for people to work through their debts, but it should not be simply written off. It needs to be a lesson for the future.
I bought my house in 2008, shortly after my wife was made redundant……to date both of us have been made redundant more then once, however both of us are working again now.
Before we bought our house we had looked at buying a 4 bedroom house in the same estate which was 80k more, it would have been lovely and we could have afforded it with both of us working. However, when we acted like proper adults and sat down and did the numbers we found that any change in our situation and we would have been screwed straight away, never mind the fact that it costs more to decorate and heat a bigger house.
So we didn’t go with the 4 bedroom and instead went with a 3 bedroom semi.
We’ve worked bloody hard and despite how hard things have been we’ve never missed a loan or mortgage payment and we’ve worked bloody hard to clear and cancel both our credit cards (never getting one again).
I’ve seen an awful lot of people especially when I was being redundant that I worked with who saw the redundancy as a holiday and admitted they would not be bothered looking for work for a few months atleast. Only for the same fools to go into panic mode 12 months later after they had burned through the money.
I’ve also seen an awful lot of people not get their priority’s right, they claim they are broke but see no problem going out spending 60e at the weekend drinking or getting Sky with all the movie and sports packages.
When I was made redundant the first thing i did was cancel sky altogether and make any other cut backs I could, if that mean saving a few euro of my electric bill by switching providers or changing my mobile or landline plan that was done. I also know some people that continue to run up massive credit card bills doing just the weekly shop but at the same time have all the broadband, sky etc services you can think of. Frankly its crazy!
Sadly it seems some people don’t like trying to live within their means and instead they prefer to not want to take responsibility for their actions when things don’t go there way!
Wanting debt written off sounds good but if it ever happened be prepared for it to be abused like there’s no tomorrow!
Billy, equally, you know nothing about the thousands of struggling families so don’t tar them all with the same brush. Yes their are people who wasted money in the boom, clocked up debt on credit cards and we shouldn’t just write all of that off – but the majority of those suffering are suffering because they have lost their jobs and the dole is hardly going to cover any form of a mortgage is it?. My parents are in that group along with my younger siblings –
My Dad worked his whole life, lost jobs found work again – travelled for work but finally decided to settle with his family back in Ireland where he worked until 2008-2009 when he lost his job, he was officially unemployed for the first time in his life. After a couple of years he found some work, was unemployed again for 6 months but now he’s working again. The money is a fraction of what he was on and he has been waiting 6 months to receive FIS to top up this income – but in those few years the mortgage arrears and debt has mounted up, they don’t have and never have had sky tv, they have one small car, they never went on a foreign holidays, not even in the boom years, they never took out a credit card and ran up debt – they lived a modest lifestyle in a modest house – so what exactly did they and everyone else like them do wrong?
People aren’t asking that all their debt gets written off but there needs to be some sort of compromise. The government need to work with the likes of MABS and introduce a form of debt forgiveness, to some degree, for those who have proved they are genuinely trying to pay their debts to the best of their ability. MABS are brilliant and they work with these families, they know exactly who is trying hard to pay their debts and who is taking a light approach to it – what’s wrong with giving a small helping hand to those that are genuinely trying hard. Is it better we resign them to a lifetime of debt and kick their children into the poverty trap?
I know where your coming from to some degree and it annoys me too that some people spent wildly during the boom, but for everyone of those there is someone else who was careful with money, who worked hard but current circumstances have turned in their favour – don’t these people deserve some degree of assistance?
poppysmith The article states that the suggestion is that the debts are simply written off. If you read my additional comments you would see that I am in agreement that some sort of plan should be put in place, where people can work through their debt, but they shouldn’t just be written off. You are telling me what I do and don’t know, and are very presumptious at best. You state you have a great job, and good financial standing, so good for you, but a lot of people like me are just making ends meet, but will continue to do so, no matter what. You’ve obviously not read the article properly or my comments, so I won’t be corresponding with you any further, so you can presume what you want.
Billy your first comment stated: “What a joke! I pay all my bills and didn’t get into debt, but have to pay the debts of all the people who got in over their heads. Not going to happen.” which doesn’t seem to say you’re in favour of “an agreement that some sort of plan should be put in place” as you state.
I know the article states that debts should simply be written off but it states that would be in the case where they cannot be repaid – i.e. they won’t just write off all debt, it will have to be proven that a person is unable to clear that debt. For example if someone struggled to meet the entirety of their mortgage repayments for a period of time but was paying everything they could towards it, and this can be verified via proof they they’ve sat down and done out budgets with MABS, then the outstanding arrears on their mortgage should not pile up and chase them for life but rather these arrears should be written off. Keeping a gun to their head for money they don’t have and won’t have again is not going to do anyone any favours.
I’m sorry if you feel I’m are telling you what you do and don’t know, I’m merely giving my opinion and my experiences. If you feel I’m being presumptuous then maybe if you re-read your first comment you might understand my anger towards your complete dismal of debt forgiveness and your assumption of “people who got in over their heads”.
Yes I state I have a great job, and I’m in good financial standing, but I simply did so to illustrated the point that while I, like yourself, and I quote you “pay my bills and didn’t get into debt” I still believe that we should help those not fortunate enough to be able to pay their bills at the moment and I’ve made reference to my own parents who are struggling due to unemployment and the impact this is having on my younger siblings, so I’m not exactly sure what I’ve said that’s offended you so much. I’ve merely stated, in response to your first comment, that we should help those who need the help and not banish them and their children to a lifetime of debt – stuck in a poverty trap they will never climb out of.
@ Billy & Barry
Try not to internalise it. It’s not about what you did or what you owe or don’t owe.
All this talk about GDP is lovely for the EU press releases but the problem here is that the domestic economy has gone to hell in a handcart. 450 thousand on the dole another 85 thousand in makey up jobs plus 87thousand of our youngest emigrated last year. Consumer spending fell last year by 2%. Mortgage debt write off is the only solution and this will happen either through banking initiatives or default. Of course there will be abuses there always is but this is no reason not to do it. Everyone suffers including you because the domestic economy has stalled, Increased taxes direct and stealth , domestic charges, rates and by the same token everyone gains by writing of mortgage debt. More spending more Vat more income tax receipts.
poppysmith You are the one getting angry, which you confirm yourself, and if that’s due to my comments, that’s fair enough, as you are entitled to take them whatever way you feel, and that does not bother me. I am stating how I feel about the situation as I do not wish to pay for the mistakes of others. If you want to pay for those mistakes, that’s up to you and fine by me, but please don’t go off on a rant, telling me lots of things I already know, and how I should feel, and how I should act, as you are not going to change my opinion. You haven’t offended me, but I am bordering on annoyed at people telling me what I need to do and feel, just because they don’t agree with my view. I already said that I wouldn’t reply again, as I’ve better things to be doing, so maybe just leave it at that. If you are going to keep this going, I would appreciate a somewhat shorter reponse as you are starting to go on a bit now.
Me neither Billy – however, the truth is that this would be good for the economy on the whole and thus good for people in the same boat as yourself.
Just to confirm my comment, I meant if someone who has clearly over spent their way into debt through their own greed, they should be held responsible for that. Not obviously someone who really is on the bread line through no fault of their own.
Any debt write down has to be done across the board, not simply for those who can’t pay, how about maxing out mortgages at 125% of fair market value?
Surely this would lead to another banking crisis?
david all of the debts have already been cleared thats what happened when we bailed out the banks.
Pierce2020, its a nice idea in theory….but not in practice.
Think of a small company that is say owed 100k in debt by normal consumers,
By your logic the debt should be written off. Sounds great for the consumers, what about the company? So they now didn’t get paid and may be forced to lay off some people or even close down.
Sorry Barry, by across the board I mean’t mortgage debt, not other types. I tend to think that mortgage debt is fundamentally different to other types debt, when somebody looses their home the burden of housing them is the states.
And do you want me to pay…….I’m tired of paying……Hep C, Institutional Abuse, Deaf Soldiers, Sean Quinn Insurance, Collapsed Banks, Collapsed Developers, ……..and now you want more……….if it wasn’t biologically possible I would ask you to do it!
Is that not a bit slap on the face for those who were begin *realistic* about what they can and can’t afford during boom???
You can’t do that Pierce – what about me – I have no mortgage. Unless you mean that all those who didn’t buy into an OBVIOUSLY overinflated market should get some kind of cash prize?
(p.s. when I say obviously, I don’t mean anyone with a mortgage, I mean those who went beyond their means circa 2007)
no I don’t agree. Only those who cannot pay (those who lost their Jobs) should have this debt forgiveness. Why do it for those who can afford to pay it? If people no longer have a job to pay the mortgage the money is no longer there to pay it. Why give a debt write down to people who can still pay. Those who lost their jobs had no choice. They just can’t pay it.
To be able to pay off all the bills, the mortgage and all the other crap I am working 70-80 hours a week.
But hey we are a middle income family where we are both working..
That CLEARLY means that we are loaded, and can be targeted for more levies, taxes etc.
Guess what.. Its just not worth it anymore.
To be honest we (The wife and I) are thinking what if we just come up with a way of getting sacked.
Then I can go to the bank and tell them here is the keys to the house. I really don’t give a toss anymore..
Then make our way to the local social office to tell them we don’t have a place to live anymore, and if they would be so kind as to put us up in a free house.
+ Since we don’t have any income, we can now get a free medical card which actually means we can then finally go to the doctor when we are sick instead of saying to the kids. “Sorry love, but you will just have to stick it out, we cant afford to go to the doctor”
Etc etc etc..
Iceland did it at 110%
This is a very haphazard solution. What about the careful people in the boom? Those who scrimped and saved to get their house and who are affording the repayments? They just look on as some get total debt forgiveness?? I know it wasn’t all their fault but it seems unfair. I have a car loan…does that get erased? And what about small businesses? Large corporations? Where does it end? Short of starting the entire country again at 0 Balance, I don’t see how this makes sense….
It should have been done years ago!
Nice idea but pure fantasy. Why bail out people who got in over their heads in debt and punish those who are managing their debt in a responsible manner.
Why bail out the banks and punish the ordinary people by making them pay the bankers bills???????
Fair point Martin can’t argue with that!
Martin, can’t argue with that but it’s done deal. It would be crazy to apply this to individual debt unless it is applied to every single person in debt.
If you write down the mortgages, you write down the all mortgages to the market value + a few per cent extra. It’s the sensible thing to do.
But because I can pay I’m stuck with a negative equity weight to manage. And they wonder why people are choosing to not pay. Absolutely angers me to think some will get off the hook while those who do pay will be burdened.
No problem with this proposal as long as they lose ownership of the asset as part of the deal. Otherwise solvent people are just paying insolvent’s mortgages for them.
so throw families out in the street and leave an empty house. What planet are you on.
Christopher – how much extra tax are you willing to pay to cover this?
Paul, we have so far this year borrowed 18 billion to pay bondholders off in failed banks, next year we will borrow 17 billion to pay bondholders. How much tax are you willing to pay to cover that? Me seeing as I do pay tax would prefer to see my tax helping Irish citizens who are in deep trouble rather then seeing my taxes going to bondholders. Which would be your preference Paul?
Kerry – the two are not mutually exclusive.
I’m pissed that I’m paying extra taxes to bail out the banks.
That doesn’t change my question. If you want debt forgiveness that’s going to cost. And tax payers will need to pay more.
So, are you willing to pay say 5% additional on income tax?
I’m not. However, I may not have a choice :-(
“Paul, we have so far this year borrowed 18 billion to pay bondholders off in failed banks, yada yada yada”
Kids. This is what is known as a strawman argument. Don’t do strawman arguments because it only proves that you are not able to debate the topic at hand.
Paul the debt ‘forgiveness’ has already being payed to the banks that was done when the results of the bank stress review was completed,
ColindeB said ““Paul, we have so far this year borrowed 18 billion to pay bondholders off in failed banks, yada yada yada”
Kids. This is what is known as a strawman argument. Don’t do strawman arguments because it only proves that you are not able to debate the topic at hand.”
So is it incorrect we have paid 18 billion to failed banks who use that money to pay bondholders? Do you equate 18 billion euros with straw? Do you not think forking out 18 billion euros that the Irish tax payer has to pay for is a matter of importance or no importance? Sorry the only straw is your rather silly response. To par-phase “kids don’t listen to someone like ColindeB who clearly hasn’t got to kinder garden yet”
If someones debts are written off – do they also get to keep their assets? Surely the way forward is for assets to be surrendered (house, etc) in return for a fresh start, debt free. Isn’t that what the new bankruptcy law is supposed to achieve?
Only if they are millionaires, what do you think Nama was but away of making people who owed billions safe from messy bankruptcy. Couldn’t have the great and the good loosing their homes, that is for the masses only and the sad truth is that the masses have no problem with that.
Darryl O’Donnell, how dare you suggest that these people can’t eat their cake and keep it to.
:)
You know alot of people won’t give up their car, house etc in exchange for no debt, sure some people might but a hell of alot of people won’t as they’ll want to be debt free and get to keep the house.
so you would evict the family and leave a house empty that can’t be sold as no houses are being bought? Your all heart aren’t you.
Yes. The family can rent, are debt-free, and attempt to save a deposit to buy again.
The house can go on the market and the bank can get whatever they can for it. Houses will always sell for the right price.
@Donal what a selfish attitude!’I m alright Jack eff you’!!!!!Most people are in debt because of WAGE CTUS!!!!!!!!!!!! x-(
Not really, I was against bank debt being written off, so obviously I’m not going to be a hypocrite and say individual debt should be written off like most people in here probably are. Most people are not in debt because of wage cuts or lay offs, they are in debt because of excess spending of money they didn’t have a few years ago. Is it more selfish that I don’t want to pay extra tax to bail people out or that those people expect me to pay extra tax to pay for their debt?
Just to add obviously if someone really is on the bread line and it’s through no fault of their own then a review of that case and some debt forgiveness in that case would be fine by me. But a wholesale debt forgiveness for everyone across the board would be crazy.
No Donal they are in Debt because they have lost their JObs.
And for those who are struggling the burden should be shared, eg, a debt of €100k should be adjusted to account for ability so it could end up as anything between 25 -50% being written down
Agreed, being self employed in the building industry I’m down 70% income from when I took out my mortgage. Ptsb increased my mortgage from 1390 to 1810 over the same period. I don’t want a Wright down or dept forgiveness. Just a break to breath so I can pay back what I owe.
Pretty sweet deal for those who spent beyond their means and a real kick in the face for those who were responsible and self-sufficient instead. Why reward the former and punish the latter? Debt forgiveness would be a self-defeating, short-termist move that would push many people’s already incredibly entitled views on the role of government into overdrive.
In any normal functioning country this would have been done a long time ago. The people getting the write off still loose out massively.
It’s normal functioning business.
Not everybody caught up in this sh1t spent beyond their means.
Ronan how do “people loose out massively” by having their debts written off ? It just leaves people like me who are not well off but are paying their mortgage still in the negative equity doom ! Working till I die, having to stay in the same house stuck with the noose around my neck.
@pippa, But what if you lose your job and can’t pay your morgage, is that impossible in your case or something??, surley people who have been trying to pay just like you are now but struggling with morgage hikes and daily costs should have some sort of light at end of the tunnel. The bankers found themselves in the same situation yet they were giving a second chance, why shouldn’t the people that had no part in the creation of the crisis be entitled to the same.
@Martin
The problem is that even for us WITH jobs there is no light at the end of the tunnel.
We will be stuck in a house we cant sell, and are working ourselves into an early grave to pay off.
If you write down mortgage debt you need to write down all mortgage debt. It can be done.
cuts.sorry.
@ poppy smith
Well said
please forgive me for the following;
did no one see the crash coming ? I was home in Ireland 6 years ago and it was clear to me and some others that there would be a crash !!
why is there not a greater back lash from the public against the Banks.?
I am asking because i want to understand more than I already do, would love some feed back
thank you posters.
has any one read ; The Boomerang by Micheal lewis very good read !
Because its not the banks that are the real culprits. We need to stop thinking bankers are some pious breed of people. They are business people. Bertie Ahern, Brian Cowen and the Central Bank permitted, nah, encouraged them to trade with utter wreck leanness because that knocked on to govt revenue and therefore increased wealth for them personally by justifying spectacularly high salty hikes. These are the criminals. Any business would have behaved the same left unchecked. It was state sponsored. Blame those at the helm.
Salty should be salary. :o)
Well said Patricia. I was advising people in 2006 not to buy property. A retarded monkey could see that it wasn’t sustainable.
The banks are not to blame. Were they stupid? – yes. But they didn’t put a gun to anyones head and forced them to take out money. Blaming the banks is failing to take responsibility.
Paul don’t know about you but at the height of the bubble I was getting letters from banks that I didn’t even have an account with offering me pre-approved “loans” of 30k or more, happily I put them in the bin. So the banks and those in charge of the banks at that time do carry a responsibility. The real sickening thing is those in the banks who helped cause this crises are still in their old jobs or have retired and are now popping up in other banks in positions of power.
So the banks were stupid but not to blame and the people were stupid to buy and are fully to blame?? Heroin dealers dont force a gun to peoples heads either if they want to buy some heroin, but they don’t wave them away either and when they see their clients hooked on it, they’ll even sell them twice as much. Do we blame the drug dealers? Don’t we say the people who sell drugs have to take responsibility for their actions, that its criminal? It might be a crap analogy but to me the banks demand as much respect as drug dealers do. People should have been turned away in their thousands after salary checks were done but no, the big banker boys were having too much fun making millions on the markets and they wanted more. Simple as. The banks loaded the guns and left them at the door for the people to take away freely
@ Kerry – you make a valid point. They offered you the money and you refused, you exercised judgement correctly. Again my point is just cos its a bank doesn’t mean they are omniscient, they are a business. We don’t blame Jim Langan or Windsor motors but they too were offering finance for purchases. Same thing just that the banks weren’t tying a purchase to the finance. If you want to attribute blame, put it on those who are responsible for the financial structure of the country; our elected representatives. Also we need to take personal responsibility which I think you agree with. Many of us were very greedy, naive or stupid. Regardless if which option you choose it’s personal choice and therefore personal responsibility for the outcome right?
That’s a bit insulting to retarded monkeys. :I)
@ Evan. By your rationale everyone who advertises anything for purchase is guilty simply by offering. YOU are responsible for YOUR finances, not a bank.
Also Heroin is illegal and physically and mentally addictive. That analogy doesn’t work.
If someone can’t pay they won’t pay. It’s very simple really. So you can write it off or not write it off or do whatever you want – they still won’t pay because they still can’t.
exactly. simple as that so any of the above heartless bastards hoping families will be evicted after debt forgiveness I am sorry to disappoint ye.
‘Im sure to disappoint you’ Sure will you not be evicted anyway and still owe a debt if you don’t get the forgiveness.
How about this, would you be happy for the State to take some of the difference in price between the value of your house now, and the value of your house when you later sell it (adjusting for inflation) – in return for a debt writedown? For example, the State decides the best policy is debt forgiveness by taking an equity stake in your house of up to 50% – is that a fair and reasonable policy?
Don’t think it’s a great idea DoD.
What happens if prices continue to decline? How do you divvy up the loss then?
Let’s start with the BTL’s first. If an investor can’t pay that mortgage, they should lose the asset and it should be sold on the open market. Any objections?
PPR’s are a different matter but first we need to stop subsidising insolvent landlords.
Well, I meant PPRs, since there is a lot of talk about people being “thrown out of their home”. I agree BTLs should just be re-possessed.
I was more trying to find out what people would give up in return for debt-forgiveness, by throwing a possible solution out there…
To answer your question, if property prices decline, then so be it. But at least people will have more disposable income to put back into the domestic economy. The State would take a loss on its equity stake initially, but an increase in domestic consumption should stabilse things and allow more credit to then flow from the banks to businesses again. Property prices should then stabilise as well. And what would be needed, as the very first step, would be strict regulation on how much someone can borrow, limit on salary multiples, etc – to stop banks from again loaning wildly on residential property but instead force them to devote more resources to business lending. Property should then rise with inflation. I guess I can dream can’t I? ;-)
Don’t think it’s a great idea. It’s basically NAMA on a micro-scale with it’s long-term gamble on where house prices are going to go.
It would be better to just wipe the slate clean.
As for people being “thrown out of their houses”, people have a right to shelter but nobody has an automatic right to a house they can’t afford. They can rent like everybody else who can’t afford to own.
I’m still working, same job, but making about €10k less than I was in 2008. and I never made anything like the average industrial wage.
I have no Sky, no landline, pay gas and electric on budget plans. My mobile is prepay and I barely use it. I pack lunches. I walk to work. I’m only getting the painful cavities in my teeth sorted because of my health levy refund.
Our mortage is paid. All our bills are up to date. We struggle, but we make it. I have a loan, where I restructured my credit card debt. The bank didn’t want to give me the loan because I don’t make enough to pay it back according to NDI calculations — even though it reduced my monthly outgoings by €200. I fought for it, and got it just in time for the most recent pay cut. We don’t go out. I don’t buy new clothes. My shoes are at least 5 years old.
And still, I support debt forgiveness for those who can’t pay. Do you know why? Do you know where my pay cut came from? People not being able to spend money. At the moment, the people with money are the rich buggers hoarding it and not spending. Poor people? They’ll spend every penny they get their hands on because they have to. And my pay will increase. And I’ll be able to spend money again.
And so on.
The begrudgery on here is short-sighted. We’ve already bailed out the banks. Let’s bail out our neighbours and towns. Sitting proud in your flat saying “you were all more stupid than me” isn’t going to fix the economy.
Many “rich buggers” are only dying to go on a spending binge and help your business.
However, they are waiting for house prices to come down a bit more – they are STILL too high and being maintained at artificially high levels by people continuing to reside in fine houses while chronically defaulting on their mortgages.
Let house prices return to their natural level; stop with the attempts at putting an artificial floor on house prices, and you’ll see many “rich buggers” emerge to spend their hard-earned cash on house furnishings, meals out, holidays, etc.
How Irish is this, will pay faceless bond holders who with the banks engineered this boom/bust through various methods. But mention w/o for fellow citizen and out cry, not that it matters if Govt decide to do it WTF are you going to do,, protest,, I think not
Also we gave banks over 5 billion 4 yrs ago to address this very issue
The property market prices have always been set by the auctioneers and the banks. When demand is high the price of houses goes up and when there’s no demand, as we see now, the prices plummet.
So if my house is only worth half of its original value when bought in 2007, why can’t my mortgage be re-evaluated as well
Bullshit – nobody SETS the price of a house. The value is determined by what people are willing to pay. the bubble was inflated by people paying stupid money. Nobody forced them to. Much is it was greed (second homes, etc.)
Right, we’ll go back to the start will we? A lot of land was sold around the Dublin and greater Dublin area for absurd amounts of money. The property developers had to borrow heavily from the banks to buy this over priced land. We all know that this wasn’t one million here and a couple of million there, the most famous being the Glass Bottle site for 450 million. All borrowed money from the banks. The building starts like frenzy. Those loans need to be paid back. The banks threw caution to the wind. I remember having to get my dad to garauntee a student loan in 1993 for a few hundred pounds, in 2006 my local AIB beside my work was willing to give me a bridging loan for 800k at 6% interest rate because our own house hadn’t sold and sure “we know ya from doing your business with us”. We didn’t take them up on their offer needless to say as we were so shocked at how much they were willing to give us the money. 100% mortgages were being thrown out like bread to ducks on a canal.
We were living in a modest 3 bed terrace house on the edge of Crumlin/Kimmage. We had the Drimnagh/Crumlin drug war raging around us. We had a pub 4 doors away from us where kids would play outside while their parents were getting pissed inside. We had Garda helicopters hovering over our estate for hours every second week. We had boy racers speeding outside our drive. We didn’t want to raise kids in that enviroment so we wanted to move. We couldnt afford to move within Dublin so like thousands of other young couples we moved to a “satellite town”. I was shocked at the price that was set (sorry Paul, valued ) on our house. “Oh you’re location is so close to town, that’s why” said our auctioneer. He forgot to add that the higher he pushed the price, the more he would get from his 1% cut on the final selling price. Then when we went looking at houses in our chosen satellite town, Maynooth, we were even more shocked at the prices! I’m from the Midlands originally, from a farming background, and I know what it costs to build houses. I’ve seen friends build big spacious bungalows on 1 or 2 acres of land for a couple of hundred grand. We viewed ordinary 4 bed detached houses. One in my estate where we eventually bought was on the market for 825k not including stamp duty. That was in 2006. Four years later it sold for 475K. In 9 months we had about 5 or 6 viewings of our house and only one interested party who thank god bought it. Every auctioneer around Maynooth spun the line “you’re on the commuter belt, right beside the motorway, close to the M50, there’s a train station here blah blah blah……”
All we wanted to do was have a reasonable quality house, no greed involved. But there was a vicious chain of events happening. Older people with kids grown up with now big empty houses realised they could cash in on desperate young working couples who wanted to leave Dublin. I was stunned that we couldn’t afford a detached house. All my friends down the country lived in ones twice the square footage. We were even shocked by the prices of semi-d 4 bedroom houses. If we hadn’t a house to sell in Dublin, we wouldn’t have been able to afford that either. It was ridiculous! I had a dealing with one estate agent in Maynooth who was clearly pitching us up against phantom bidders so he could get top price for his client as well as himself. This was rife in the real estate game. I had estate agents who would sit in the kitchen and let you walk around yourself cos they had so many missed calls to catch up on. It was the handiest job in Ireland. Paul, it’s idealistic to just think the people were only to blame. We were a part of it but the developers buying land up from greedy land owners using borrowed money from banks who were given the green light to gamble on the markets and to give 100% mortgages to anyone who wanted them. Estate agents joined up, informed of their jobs to sell sub standard cheaply built houses on overpriced pieces of land where the developer needed top dollar for profit and ahem, dare I say, to repay the loans to the banks ( ha ha the thought of them doing that! )
I know of a guy who had some land he wanted to develop just outside Mullingar. He went to his local AIB bank looking for a loan of 1 million to build 5 or 6 good quality detached houses on their own acre sites. He was confident he would sell them at 5-600k each and he wasn’t even going to use up all of the land. He was happy to make a couple of million profit. Normal logic business thinking. When he presented his plan to AIB, he was basically laughed at ( this was 2005 ) and he was informed of the way things were being done around the country. They told him he could get a loan of 3 or 4 million or more if he wanted cos he was mad leaving lots of the land unused. Why didn’t he build smaller, cheaper made houses in an estate form? They told him he was crazy and that he was missing out on more millions. After intense pressure from numerous phonecalls from AIB, he resisted the temptation, built and sold his 6 quality houses. He loves telling that one. But that’s the way the banks were. And Paul, let me tell you the demand is still sky high, I have numerous friends wanting to buy and they have good paying jobs but the banks won’t give them the money. That’s the difference now. It’s even getting more expensive to rent now than to buy. People still want to live in the greater Dublin area as much as they did 5 or 6 years ago but they can’t buy and people aren’t selling cos of negative equity. People seem to forget about Bertie’s bench marking as well. That drove up the public sector wages and added to the belief that we were all wealthy. The Government’s notion of decentralisation gave the green light to build the dreaded ghost estates that we now know.There was no demand there, just greedy developers building! In order to get a good grasp of what was going on, you had to be one of those people in the bubble, dealing with estate agents and banks. I had enough of both! No one was immune from greed but I can tell you that if a developer paid too much money for a site you can bet he’s going to tell estate agents to put the highest price possible with the banks ready to hand out the dosh. If that’s bullshit then I must have been dreaming my property experience of 2006-7. Can I wake up now, please..?
Evan, prices are ALWAYS determined by what people are willing to pay. The fact that people were manipulated is neither here nor there – this always happens when something, anything, is marketed and sold. You don’t like it – then demand a law is brought in to control the market, set a max % that someone can borrow, set the max multiples of a salary that can be borrowed, & regulate EAs.
Back to debt-forgiveness – lets say your mortgage is reduced. If house prices then go up, would you be then prepared to pay a correspondingly higher mortgage?
If you can’t do that for whatever reason, would you be happy for the State to take some of the difference in price between the value of your house now, and the value of your house when you later sell it (adjusting for inflation)? For example, the State decides the best policy is debt forgiveness by taking an equity stake in your house of up to 50% – is that a fair and reasonable policy?
I’ll accept debt forgiveness as long as the people who are forgiven have their credit records destroyed – ie. no more borrowing credit cards etc..
some mortgages should be brought down because a lot of people where given false hope of investment, but credit card should not be in this plan, that’s peoples own private spending. They bought cars and holidays with that money while living in la la land, but people with mortgages took out that money as a retirement or investment for there family. But it doesn’t matter, because like everything else designed to help people, it will be abused.
Bankruptcy laws should be enforced for all and houses resold !.. it takes two to tangle and this country has been to nice to mortgage arrears and the banks! Bottom line! You all hurt this country! Should have done your homework prior to buying your houses and giving and accepting unstainable loans! And life goes on! Ya can’t buy a house for 5 years but no more debt! Your daily lives will become better in due time and our economy! Change must come swiftly to incorporate growth for all of Ireland! People can’t borrow due to restricted lending ..You all fecked it up!
Who is buying these houses???
The bottom line is this !! Half of nothing will always be nothing !!!
http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2012/04/04/our-bailed-out-banks-are-in-process-of-going-bust-again
For all those who don’t want to blame the banks.
I suggest Matt Cooper’s How Ireland Really Went Bust for some educational reading
Ireland followed the cheap credit model fashioned by the US and Britain. All the banks were at it. Sub prime lending was the new thing. Suddenly people from poorer working class areas were able to get a house in nice neighbourhoods. The American model had the great advantage of if you defaulted and couldn’t pay your mortgage then you put the keys through the letterbox and walked away to start fresh. The American dream. If you fail try and try again till you succeed. In Ireland our prosperity years were created. Cheap credit flooded the markets. Bertie Ahern’s government embraced it head first. Developers were taking billions in loans from the banks with not a hope of it being paid back and the Great Build was on. Check out in Coopers book just how close all the top developers and bankers were to Bertie’s mob.
Alarm bells were going off at this point but the Central Bank was told to look the other way. So much work was created from construction and jobs related to that and wages were higher. Bertie caved in to the public sector unions and bench marking was introduced to match public sector wages to professional private sector salaries. There was no end to the craziness! The “demand” that people here keep talking about was the result of throwing petrol on the fire. The only reason there was a demand was because people had access to cheap credit, they were working but credit cards made you seem wealthier, the banks were willing to give you 100% mortgages and even bridging loans to help you get your house. ( the loans manager I dealt with in AIB was younger than me and she uttered the words “if its the house you really want we’ll help you get it” ) If I said I wanted a house on Vico Road beside Bono, they would have given me the money. There was nobody policing the banks. We had enough cop on not to go for it and a quick adding up of figures told us we actually couldn’t afford the house of our dreams but there were thousands of people who couldn’t resist being told they could finally buy that dream home. Why is it so easy to throw stones at them but continue to leave the banks blame free?!
I would love to see people being able to walk away from their house if they can’t pay the mortgage and let someone else take it up at the new valued price. Then the people could start to rebuild their lives, find work and perhaps dare to dream again. I can’t see it happening cos the builders messed up so many projects ( Priory Hall etc ) and the good houses ain’t moving onto the market.
Maybe we need Bertie to make another Sci Fi property bubble and create the magical “demand”…..
if the then government had written off 8K of each persons deb ( mortgage, personal loans, credit cards) t the banks would have in the same position and the citizens would be too, it would have cost exactly the same as the bail outs..
I’m no financial whiz, but this makes sense in my head: is there any way house prices that were assessed during the ‘boom’ years be reverted to today’s price and repayment rates changed accordingly for those who can afford to pay, and debt forgiveness for those who can’t ? Wouldn’t that be the fairest solution?
That is debt forgiveness, writing mortgage debt down to market value.
Pic looks like PYRAMID HEAD!!!!!
Aaaaaaaggghhhhh!
The banks should stop in the first place bringing up the interest rates every 3 months on variable mortgages every single excuse to do it is good to them it bring people above the line And more and more goes in arrears . Has to stop how high can they go ? With or without a job there is only so much money ones can make in a month
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