The Building Boom Is Over!

As long as your builder mates don’t get their way and get tax payers to prop them up we shouldn’t get more mediocrity and there’ll be pause to consider things…and time to get back to fair value. I 100% agree with Jimg above, sharp analysis.

Great analysis from Alan Aherne in today’s Irish Times, he’s the man advising the Minister for Finance

Courage to say No to vested interests is crucial for economy

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2008/0916/1221430255118.html

ALAN AHEARNE
ANALYSIS : What did I tell yesterday’s Fianna Fáil meeting? If you weren’t there, read on. . .

HOW PAINFUL will the economic downturn be and long will it last? The simple and honest answer is that the slump will be severe and will probably last longer than most people think. The consensus among economic forecasters is for a moderate decline in real GDP this year, followed by a pick-up to low positive growth in 2009. A robust recovery, with growth of roughly 4 per cent, is pencilled in for 2010.

This projected path for economic activity looks implausible. Weak incoming data, a deteriorating outlook for growth abroad and the scale of adjustment in the housing market that has still to take place point to significant contractions in GDP both this year and next. The economy may stabilise in 2010 as the drag from new homebuilding fades, but we will probably have to wait until 2011 for a rebound to strong growth.

If the government take the weak option I’ll go mad 😡

@massamann wrote:

BoB,
About three months ago you paused the criticism of everybody else to tell us the kind of buildings that you DID like. This was what we got at the time:
So now that you are back, can you name something? Anything? I can’t picture where you’re coming from if all I have to go on is “I’d like to see Irish architects lead instead of follow”. I’m all for debate, but that involves more than just pointing out what we don’t like. Anybody can do that. Can we all please take it to the next level?

Have you ever actually worked in any of these retarded overpriced building we have created recently in Ireland, have you ever actually lived or stayed a few nights in the shit hole apartments and dreaded dreary f**kwit estates , have you ever thought what the net social reprecussion down the line of a massive cost overrun in a public private building contract is I could go on…

If you need to still ask that question your never going to get the answer. Id recommend you take a flight, get a job, go live and work in 3 or 4 different countries, then travel around those countries and its neighbours doing business or sighseeing, bring your family and kids, look for value and comfort places of interest places of social gathering and activities, places of entertainment, education and social services for them and then you come back here in a few years and you tell me if you would even entertain such a ridiculous question from someone who is suppossed to be in the know.
I had way too much fun getting out of this shithole and its dreary manmade landscape to even contemplate getting into that kind of a debate. Someone build a decent building here thats has merit and stands on its own two feet in all aspects, cost, function, aesthetic, individuality and we can take it to the next level . I have spoken where I saw fit in regard to what and how I saw things presented on this forum.

Times have changed, history has moved in its over , it was a failure , the RIAI and architects in general made alot of money whilst simultaneously failing society as a whole . Shut the door, turn out the lights, switch off the printer there are other more pressing matters at hand.
I couldnt be arsed arguing anymore I will repeat my heartfelt believe…..
What we got in effect was a bunch of sub-prime and credit default swap architecture, The buidlings constructed during the Celtic tiger boom were so highly leveraged in starchitect archi-speak bullshit and the chase for the next contract/shekels few if any dared burst the illususory bubble that somehow these buildings were even half decent.

You want an example , heres one … the Millau viaduct was a joy to drive over. 394 million euro joy. Now you and the rest of your ilk here who are still delusional and need some clarification as to what exatcly was lacking in irish architecture and the building boom can go off and play in your 4 billion euro Metro line sandbox.
Whats that 4billion euro in real terms, I did the sums last night, it represents ten times the amount per GDP per head of pop that the UK is spending on the olympics. Go tell the UK they are hosting 10 Olympics in a row , what are we getting for that , 1 f**ing metro line.

Jesus BoB,

After all that, you go and name a road? And even worse a motorway designed by a starchitect!

I have to admit, I expected more.

I seem to sense snouts, troughs and spivvery in the last post; what a sad pass we’ve come to that the stability of bankers has been replaced by the greed of wankers who just look to ‘minimise their losses’. Clearly, integrity is for little people.

The underbelly of any society is unattractive but when the cops don’t give a damn it really does make the problem a lot worse; on a trip to Vilnuis a couple of years back it really struck me just how few of socienties unfortunates existed and this in a country where gdp is a fraction with that of Dublin’s. The snooker tables in Donnybrook really do need to be removed and the beat walked again to clean up the act of people who behave in an unacceptable way just because they can get away with it.

Johnglas

I was disapointed by your comments; the subject under discussion is that the boom is over and that a mega recession is going to consume the entire economy; yet you concentrated on the fact that I had by increasing my holding of actual shares to prop up existing positions at intra day lows been equated with someone selling shares I didn’t own and try to exacerbate the position of companies already under pressure.

This is something I would never do but when shares hit a particularly low point intra day I often jump in with a belief that prices will rise and that the excess shares can be used to at worst cut losses or at best deliver profit. The ban on short selling introduced this week is welcome and make no mistake if things kept going at the rate they were going in markets this week for another 24 hours the system would have crashed and unemployment would have been 30% in the OECD within 24 months.

To express relief that one has not been wiped out in the face of the worst market conditions in 70 years does not make one a wanker but simply a typical retail investor who has been caught in a once in century level of volatility and seen all there existing strategies redendered ineffective. Give me a choice between the levels of volatility seen since the start of the year or a stable market delivering 6% growth p.a. and I would chose the quiet model everytime as there are always sectors that have an advantage over others and outperform slightly in the medium term; examples would be renewable energy over automotive.

Thankfully Friday delivered and the BoI shares I bought at €3.85 and €3.70 early doors on Thursday finished the week at €5.25 which indicates that despite a €30bn exposure to property the market is confident that the economy although facing changes will come through this phase with its main banks remaining profitable; which lets face it this is not a phase we want to see for a very long time again.

@johnglas wrote:

There is great unease out there and we need to revert to a more regulated (and less ‘controlled’) society, particularly in money terms, where money and property are not so much commodities as means to an end and the fatcats are made to act responsibly and pay their dues like the rest of us. Here endeth the lesson…

For sure; the large Wall St investment banks are down to 2 survivors throw in UBS and there are probably only 3 left. The many large commercial banks that tried to copy them will retreat into less risky business models that are more akin to utilities than casinos. It was some week all the same and I for one hope we never see anything like it again!!

The real irony of this week is that the FSA may take some of the 20 Floors Lehman Bros had at 20 Bank St; if only they knew what was going on in the same building but one thing is clear 4 equally sized floors was from enough space to regulate the volumes of instruments out there. 😮

Came across this little video of some imagery of North American cities.. ie New York, Chicago etc…set to a piece of music by Ultravox.
The piece is about 30 years old, but look at all the trappings of contemporary and modern living -appartments, mono-rails, shopping malls, offices etc… Stuff we in Ireland finally somewhat attained at the end of the 20th century!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZP0Psd_lu5w

So here’s to the next boom!

Sláinte!