Irish Times

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

Tubby, the problem is that the economic recovery is very much tied up in certain sectors, that only have limited impact on the rest of the economy.

Also the government is being attacked from the left, so this doesn't really help. anyway the dynamic of Irish politics has always been that labour only gets into coalition when things turn to shit. They are involved in trying to get things back on track, without anyone dying of hunger, and then they take all the blame for anything bad that happened during the path to recovery, Fine gael get all the credit, and a boost in seat numbers, but the coalition loses power. and usually Fianna fail win the election, and the cycle begins again.

This time around you can substitute Sinn Fein for Fianna Fail.

[Calvert]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

Tubby Isaacs loves shit like this.
He reckons because it's published in the likes of the New Statesman it actually makes a blind bit of difference to anyone's actual life.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

it does make a difference though. If the figure was lower, things would be even worse, and eventual improvements would be further away.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

Calvert wrote: Tubby Isaacs loves shit like this.
He reckons because it's published in the likes of the New Statesman it actually makes a blind bit of difference to anyone's actual life.

I've no doubt it's been shit in Ireland for at least 7 years, and anyway about 12% growth in those 7 years isn't that good even in my "New Statesman" terms.

I was saying that it's better than Britain, and we've just re-elected the government.

[Calvert]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

I'm sure it wouldn't be that difficult to pull out contradictory statistics from some other interested party.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

if the irish government could get reelected on about 30% of the vote, then they would. The problem is your stupid electoral system.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

The Awesome Berbaslug!!! wrote: Tubby, the problem is that the economic recovery is very much tied up in certain sectors, that only have limited impact on the rest of the economy.

Also the government is being attacked from the left, so this doesn't really help. anyway the dynamic of Irish politics has always been that labour only gets into coalition when things turn to shit. They are involved in trying to get things back on track, without anyone dying of hunger, and then they take all the blame for anything bad that happened during the path to recovery, Fine gael get all the credit, and a boost in seat numbers, but the coalition loses power. and usually Fianna fail win the election, and the cycle begins again.

This time around you can substitute Sinn Fein for Fianna Fail.

I wasn't really thinking in terms of Labour or left challenges to them.

It's hard for an outsider to see how Fine Gael won't hammer Fianna Fail on the basis of "clearing up their shit". I'm not getting the underlying dynamic that seems incredibly generous to Fianna Fail.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

Calvert wrote: I'm sure it wouldn't be that difficult to pull out contradictory statistics from some other interested party.

The ones I pulled out yesterday were from the IFS.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

The Awesome Berbaslug!!! wrote: if the irish government could get reelected on about 30% of the vote, then they would. The problem is your stupid electoral system.

It is stupid, agreed. But having 37% for the Tories (plus the 12.6% UKIP, who are mostly Tories) is very high given the economic record they were defending. If anything, a more rational system gives a Tory-UKIP Coalition.

[Borracho]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

The "growth" and "recovery" are happening for those sectors of Irish society which were in little or no need of any actual help to begin with. The rest of us can basically go and shite, as usual.

Not coincidentally, there will be a general election happening here very soon too.

[Borracho]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

Tubby Isaacs wrote:

Tubby, the problem is that the economic recovery is very much tied up in certain sectors, that only have limited impact on the rest of the economy.

Also the government is being attacked from the left, so this doesn't really help. anyway the dynamic of Irish politics has always been that labour only gets into coalition when things turn to shit. They are involved in trying to get things back on track, without anyone dying of hunger, and then they take all the blame for anything bad that happened during the path to recovery, Fine gael get all the credit, and a boost in seat numbers, but the coalition loses power. and usually Fianna fail win the election, and the cycle begins again.

This time around you can substitute Sinn Fein for Fianna Fail.

I wasn't really thinking in terms of Labour or left challenges to them.

It's hard for an outsider to see how Fine Gael won't hammer Fianna Fail on the basis of "clearing up their shit". I'm not getting the underlying dynamic that seems incredibly generous to Fianna Fail.

Fine Gael have made such a bollocks of the last five years that they will lose about 20 seats, many of which will go to Fianna Fail. The likeliest outcome as things stand is that both of them will form a coalition. Labour will be all but wiped out.

[Diable Rouge]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

Tubby Isaacs wrote:

if the irish government could get reelected on about 30% of the vote, then they would. The problem is your stupid electoral system.

It is stupid, agreed. But having 37% for the Tories (plus the 12.6% UKIP, who are mostly Tories) is very high given the economic record they were defending. If anything, a more rational system gives a Tory-UKIP Coalition.

Well so be it, just as there was a Lib Dem percentage gain in 2010, so a system that rewards 13% of the vote with one MP hardly reflects the will of the people. In any case, only a Labour win would have stalled the in-out referendum, and it's hard to discern how a Tory-UKIP coalition would have behaved much differently from a majority one.

As for FF, much of their fifty-plus, rural voter base provide the most reliable electoral turnout, so you have to add 3-5% to their poll ratings. By contrast, SF's young, working-class support are the softest voters, so they usually under-perform by the same margin.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/ireland/gdp-from-manufacturing

Industrial production looks good. Most people would consider that important.

GDP per person is still way down on pre-crisis peak though.

What is it? A population boom like here?

[anton pulisov]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

From those same links I found this.

Which doesn't seem to suggest that Irish GDP is 7.5% up on pre-crisis levels...

[anton pulisov]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

Number of people in employment is also bit of a problem.

[Borracho]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

The population boom peaked about 5-7 years ago, but is tapering off a bit now.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

Antonio Pulisao wrote: Number of people in employment is also bit of a problem.

Sure. We've got better job figures and awful productivity. You can achieve what Britain and Ireland have done with one of those not very good. The growth figures aren't very good in either case over 7 years, and wouldn't be particularly good even if Ireland were 7.5% above peak, which it probably isn't.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

Exports do look reasonably good though.

I know nothing about Irish politics, but the mix of the good manufacturing/exports figures and the "feelgood" bollocks of 9% houseprice growth looks electorally strong.

Going back to where I came in, Osborne would have fancied that.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

Denis O'Brien Is after cancelling his Digicel IPO.

Denis O'Brien cut his teeth as Tony Ryan's bagman in GPA.

Hopefully history is repeating itself.

This could be utterly fantastic news, on a day of general misery.

[Borracho]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

I wonder what the due diligence turned up.

BTW O'Brien was Ryan's personal assistant. Ryan's bagman was none other than this guy.

[Duncan Gardner]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

"No, this really is an airplane in my pocket. I'm not pleased to see the Calx"...

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

tubby, in that graph back there. , Irish GDP is 7% above 2007 levels. That it was still rising in 2009, well after the bubble burst is pretty extraordinary.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

Poor Denis. It looks like there are all sorts of problems coming up for him. If only there was a minister he could give a house to, or perhaps he could sue his auditors for forcign thim to publish unflattering financial details about his company.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

The Awesome Berbaslug!!! wrote: tubby, in that graph back there. , Irish GDP is 7% above 2007 levels. That it was still rising in 2009, well after the bubble burst is pretty extraordinary.

Ah cheers.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

The 2016 Irish election is over!

he's been doing the rounds of the US networks trying to brush this all off. here's an extract from his interview with CNBC.

CNBC 3: “You are losing money. I mean you have adequate access to capital, for what you need from other capital markets, including the debt markets?”

O’Brien: “Well you know, we operate in free cash-flow of $840million on $1.2billion of EBITDA so, you know, we’ve no maturities until 2021 of any consequence. So we’ve funded our balance sheet of very cheap prices in the bond market in the last 12 months so we’re very comfortable, we’re generating a huge amount of cash. We can do our MNA strategy and really develop our business so, you know, alone, we’ve spent $1.5billion on CAPEX, building fiber to the home, fibre business networks across all our markets.”

Basically he's telling everyone this is no biggy, and that they are generating all the cash that they could ever need, and they don't care that they can't borrow any more money, and they didn't really need to do the IPO anyway. But if that is the case, why the fuck was he selling 40% of the company in order to raise cash primarily to reduce debt, and to fund some further expansion?