The Great International Depression of 2008 & Beyond /

Feck it yeah - you'd get farm work easy enough down there of course - no harm to make a man out of you and put hair on your chest. You'd get something similar in Canada - butchering trees or rounding up cattle on the Montana border with a helicopter.

But it's a Depression we're in and going deeper into and there's feck all to do but wait a little and mend your own clothes and relax and take it as easy as you can.

Because did you see the projected unemployment in the news at 6 ?? 117,000 expected to lose jobs over the period of a year. That's the biggest drop in this country - in 1985, the last big drop was 24,000 that year.

We
are
focked



(this year anyway)

Do they only expect 117,000?? If January's 36000 was multiplied by 12, ye'd get 432000

Sure there were 2,000 headline (big company) losses yesterday and I know of 500 which will occur next week. It is going to be bigger than 117,000.

expat girl wrote:

just to continue the great love affair we are having with the banks (on this site at least).... more meltdown in the UK, at least according to More 4 news.... 28 bn hole noir dans les accounts de HBOS, they are now wondering if the regulator (James Crosby?? since resigned, used to run HBOS, I think, had something to do with 'em anyway) was seriously out to lunch (or worse) when pushing the merger with Lloyds....destroy 2 banks for the price of one.

Meanwhile, todays Grauniad has a centerfold spread suggesting that the peculiar resistance of Lloyds when faced with nationalisation might have had SOMETHING to do with the fact that they were claiming tax relief from both the US and UK for the same stuff.... and there was an office (or should that be orifice??) in the Caymans as well..

Jaysis, do yis still think we've the worst banking sector in the universe?? There's really stiff competition out there....

This reminds me somehow of the Anglo Irish shenanigans with little stop gap loands of 4 billion or so being dropped in on the day that Government threatened to nationalise them.

johnfas

But that's a massive collapse in jobs - how much can the country take before we're all back out on the bog eeking out a living ?? Does anyone here ever remember people having to go to the bog?? Not that I care doing that kind of work but soon the government are going to be telling people to get off the dole, get off the internet and go out and dig a few holes up in Mayo or some tunnel through a mountain in Tipperary !?

Our economy is shrinking rapidly and soon the people who run the dole, the internet and churn out the food will also be unemployed and then we'll be truly fooked. We could feck to America in Currachs but you'd be put into Guantanamo Bay or a Fema Camp

Jesus what are we going to do ?

It is a massive collapsed in jobs. Difficult thing is for a large number of the lower paid jobs when they are gone, they will be gone. Ireland is not a cheap place in which to do business, when these companies disappear there is no evidence that they will be coming back. The idea of the knowledge economy is well and good but the history of the world will tell you there will always be a need for production line workers and the sort of job which requires little skill. Ireland (and indeed Europe) whilst still requiring such work, has priced itself out of it. Higher unemployment will be the result in the longterm.

I live in Dublin City Council... we don't have many bogs...

What is sick about all of this is there is masses of work that needs to be done. Need a bit of clever accounting, parallel currencies anyone?

Squire wrote:

What is sick about all of this is there is masses of work that needs to be done. Need a bit of clever accounting, parallel currencies anyone?

If you 're saying we could inflate our way somewhere but can't because we're lodged in the Euro currency then wouldn't you expect the UK and US to inflate their way out or try to ... unless it works better in some economies and not others.

It looks like we could be facing massive unemployment forever


It'll be good for the environment though

Elsewhere I have seen the problem with lots of work that needs to be done and no money in circulation. So was wondering if it is possible to have parallel currencies in a country? One is stable and the other you print and distribute which could have zero value outside the country.

A town in England started its own currency, I think? I'll Google it anyway and see did I remember that right....

Yes, there you go:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/they-dont-just-shop-local-in-totnes--they-have-their-very-own-currency-818586.html

Isn't California printing IOUs for the Civil Servants who are left?

Glorified food stamps.

Interesting theory - do you know of instances of it yourself ? It might work you know - currencies like Turloughs which disappear in summer when the water dries up ...

Squire wrote:

Elsewhere I have seen the problem with lots of work that needs to be done and no money in circulation. So was wondering if it is possible to have parallel currencies in a country? One is stable and the other you print and distribute which could have zero value outside the country.

There are some very sophisticated barter systems running, in goods and services.

Won't you share your knowledge of them with us cactus?

Squire

what work do you see around that needs to be done from your point of view? I'd love if we plotted out cycle routes properly all around the beautiful backroads of Clare but I wouldn't know where to start - there'd be moaning from fcukers looking for compensation and handouts if you were to use a 5"sq, corner of their land for a signpost, the greedy swine. You'd be dead in two weeks for the moaning that would come out of them.

But what work do you see that needs doing anyway? I know there's always work - even on this website there's even work - there are 14 Ganley threads that need to be merged into One and similarly for the banks. We should end up with just two threads : The Ganley Thread and The Bank Thread and that would be that.

We'd have to leave the Sibin Reoite open as it's the only pub in the middle of the internet open on a Good Friday.

An element of bartering has always existed. I always remember my dad bringing home some odd things from people who didn't have the cash to pay fees.

Even when they were broke he took their personnel possessions. Your father is my new hero

johnfás

Thanks that link was interesting.


Audi,

Imagine the country becomes insolvent, you don't have hard currency to pay wages but you still need teachers etc and they need to buy food and pay bills. So what do you do? Not paying isn't an option, laying everyone off solves nothing. If they have no money then the farmer can't sell etc etc. Eventually you could end up with famine.

Money is simply an IOU so print some local currency and circulate.

Apart from that there will be lots of able bodied with no work and all those possible forests that we both like, elderly people to look after, youth groups to organise. There is lots that needs to be done. The beauty of the local currency is it will not suck in imports as it will have no outside value.

For many reasons I do not like the thoughts of legions of unemployed people sitting around doing nothing constructive.

Just a thought.

Squire wrote:

johnfás

Thanks that link was interesting.


Audi,

Imagine the country becomes insolvent, you don't have hard currency to pay wages but you still need teachers etc and they need to buy food and pay bills. So what do you do? Not paying isn't an option, laying everyone off solves nothing. If they have no money then the farmer can't sell etc etc. Eventually you could end up with famine.

Money is simply an IOU so print some local currency and circulate.

Apart from that there will be lots of able bodied with no work and all those possible forests that we both like, elderly people to look after, youth groups to organise. There is lots that needs to be done. The beauty of the local currency is it will not suck in imports as it will have no outside value.

For many reasons I do not like the thoughts of legions of unemployed people sitting around doing nothing constructive.

Just a thought.

Some stuff like teaching takes no or low resources to run I think. If a school was built have decently then the biggest resources after that is the teachers time of which we have many teachers, many of whom have lots of time. so I can see your plan coming together somewhat. It depends on consensus though doesn't it? Some exchange rules need to be worked out so that there is an exchange set of values so that your work has certain purchasing power ... it might be the case that for some people some work comes a lot easier

I'm going to end up saying something along the lines of "from each according to his ability to each according to his need" ..

Why are you afraid in the blue line above?

Two reasons, firstly it is a waste of talent and ability and secondly never wish for unrest as it is like war, once it starts it is hard to control and many innocent people can suffer. Look how the French Revolution turned out. Civil unrest can turn very nasty and once unleashed can be very hard to extinguish.

Squire wrote:

Two reasons, firstly it is a waste of talent and ability and secondly never wish for unrest as it is like war, once it starts it is hard to control and many innocent people can suffer. Look how the French Revolution turned out. Civil unrest can turn very nasty and once unleashed can be very hard to extinguish.

As you can see from the other thread on "noise", there's already some noise happening on the subject of rioting and there's no doubt about it you have a point about a tinderbox situation and a spark. The other day around here on this street a couple of cars were burned out which were owned by "non-nationals". I'm minding my own business at the moment but keeping an eye open all the same. Other "non-nationals" live quite close by.

Another youtuber - this guy says it's time for action but in a co-ordinated way. He says there is an opportunity in all this to escape the banking system that has enslaved America and to start living more sustainably and holistically in terms of Peak Oil and with respect for nature and more locally and potentially with systems of barter or local currency. I can't remember if he mentions anything about Law and Order though and maintaining it.

As our politicians keep saying, it's a global problem so perhaps there is a global solution. For one thing I feel - I don't want the bastards who got us into it to be involved in getting us out. Is it time to start thinking of the reconstruction of our society?