A Complete Explanation Of Everything

Reading some of the turgid shite that passes for journalism as penned by Brendan O'Connor today, I suppose the populace at large is not only in danger of but it is actively going to engage in a mass self-delusion about the glory years of the Celtic Tiger into the future.

The good old days will come to be known as the year of our lord, Anno Domini Bartholomew Patrick Ahern, up to 2007 B.C. Before Cowen...

Ah, the streets were paved with gold and the fundamentals were sound. The fundamentals however were not sound, they were just mental...

How could you justify wracking up personal debt to the tune of 175% of GDP, lending multiples going out of control, for every €1 earned, €1.20 out borrowed in the economy, the lowest square foot space per head of capita in the EU, 250,000 empty properties (at least) and not to mention building at a rate of 1 unit per 12 head of population when the EU average was closer to 1 unit to 30...

Ah, the fundamentals you say... Net immigration, the boom, household formation...

Froth, pure froth, I tells ya, it was a gamble with only one outcome, a one trick pony eventually runs out of customers and as soon as the other EU states opened up their labour markets we were riding for a fall anyway, indeed the old corporation tax was only going to keep the boat floating in the short term anyway...

Ok, so the credit crunch went toxic early and that started the scramble for the balance sheets, the accountants started looking at the real fundamentals and getting very scared indeed. The developers went back to the trough and were shocked, the desperate FTB went to the Bank and was shocked and nobody came to visit the overpriced seller and the self involved Estate Agent and they were collectively shocked.

I wasn't shocked, I was shocked in 2006 when I came back from 4 mths abroad to see a handy 100k knocked onto asking prices in the locality since I'd left.

Pure froth, I said. I was right and it wasn't because of doom and gloom and George Lee weather that the situation has developed thus.

1997-2007 B.C., was a happy time in Ireland for the older generation, the Marbella and Algarve generation, a time when taxi plates were worth something and the builder and developer ruled the roost. So I'm not going to be surprised when the collective delusion descends but remember this, you stored this situation up for the entire country through your practices throughout the boom years, each and every one of ye.

In that heyday period, we saw degrading healthcare, education and no real developments in infrastructure. We watched over a windfall for the developer, the speculator, the multinational to declare it's profits and the property obsessed the wrong side of 40...

So before you put Brian's head on a stick and it deserves to go there, take a long cold hard look at yourselves and think whether there's room for a stick closer to home... And then beat yourself with it...