If You're Chillin' - An Síbín Reoite

Kate P wrote:

It's weirder than ever.

Not beaten Audi.

What was the story with the grants in 1990? I was busy studying for my Inter cert then...

The grant requirement was changed in 1990 from 4 down to 2 honours. Sounds lucky but if I had known before that it wouldn't have been so much of a headache around the Leaving. We all know what a shite exam it is.

So the poor bastards just before me had to study extra hard to get the 4 while you just afterwards didn't need to break so much of yourself to get that grant.

For example.

Ah. I don't remember anything about the number of honours for grants (was it the 2 honours and 4 passes thing we kept hearing about as minimum entry requirements for courses?)

My concern was the means test. I got a grant, but still couldn't afford to live in Dublin so commuted nearly 140 miles a day for the privilege of getting my degree. Tired - but not beaten, Audi.

We'll fix that.

Now, after dragging your way through the nineties you land your first "Good Job" in your mid to late twenties. You work for a year or two and go mental with your pay packet every month (£900 back then for me). You are renting and mental and because you've dragged yourself through the nineties you have very low or non existent savings.

Everyone, in 1999 in Dublin, is talking about buying ....... a house. However, you need a big hooring deposit of 10% of the price of the house (around £100,000+ for the house). You feel it would take you about 5 years to get the deposit but even between 98/99/00 you've noticed prices rising, even your savings but just not by enough ......... so you f off to australia for a year.

When you come back, the people younger than you are getting 100% mortgages ....

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When you come back, the people younger than you are getting 100% mortgages ....

Eh, who was beaten here?

We were the ones who got the lucky escape if that's the case...

I think you get people who are lucky and unlucky in every generation. My brother is only three years older than me, some of his friends bought houses in the last 18 months and are royally screwed now. Literally bought at the very peak of the boom and are mortgaged for the rest of their lives. My brother now has a secure job and is buying his time - reckons he might buy a house in 2 years or so depending on how things go. There are plenty of people in both camps.

johnfás yes I know people who are sore I'd say now too after buying a three bed for a million ... poor suckers. I wonder how many of them were from the Beaten Generation? It's likely that they were mostly the Beaten ones in their early to mid thirties (or twenties) as they would have had better credit ratings than the younger, may have had savings, weren't too old ....

Kate

100% mortgage wasn't so bad back in 2001 - 2003 - you would have made a bit of money on a house bought then if you hadn't squandered it all on a trip to Oz or the States or where-ever you went.

You could have been one of the very very few lucky ones Kate P who esacaped it but I doubt it - no one escapes Fate, Kate.

Quote :

100% mortgage wasn't so bad back in 2001 - 2003 - you would have made a bit of money on a house bought then if you hadn't squandered it all on a trip to Oz or the States or where-ever you went.

Hmm. I would have thought that the advantage of growing up in the so-called 'Beaten Generation' should be that you know instinctively that you don't get nothing for nothing - and you'd trust a 100% mortgage like you'd trust a cranky rattlesnake in an enclosed space.

Hmm, at *whispers* 42, I guess I'm one of the real oldies round here (not that I feel it at all, mind you!). But "Beaten Generation" ?- bah! Good line for an article, darned if I'll be beaten, even if too many of Lefronde's lines rang true!

Wasn't there a desperately sad story in the papers / on the net this week about an Irishman of advanced years who lay dead in his appartment in New York for a week before anyone missed him? Has happened many times before and will happen many times to come, no doubt, but this man and his generation abroad has been much on my mind this week. All of us who have lived / are still living abroad (tricky description - I now consider myself Irish, European and Londoner in roughly that order) know at least some of these people and may not have given as much time as we should have. I believe that my own generation (emigrated in 1990) has largely faired a lot better than earlier ones and I am haunted by that this week.

... still doesn't make me feel any more generous towards the number of really smug wealthy 60-somethings at work who are about to sail into a still relatively prosperous retirement and who are rubbing it in that my generation will not fair as well ...

Kate P wrote:

Quote :

100% mortgage wasn't so bad back in 2001 - 2003 - you would have made a bit of money on a house bought then if you hadn't squandered it all on a trip to Oz or the States or where-ever you went.

Hmm. I would have thought that the advantage of growing up in the so-called 'Beaten Generation' should be that you know instinctively that you don't get nothing for nothing - and you'd trust a 100% mortgage like you'd trust a cranky rattlesnake in an enclosed space.

Well it's called the "Beaten Generation" because no matter what you do you're damned That's why I like it. It's Greek mythology stuff like the poor barsteward who lay as man to woman with thine wife but LO! she was his mother. Can't remember the name. Oedipus.

Now, take me and Atticus for example. He's 42 and I'm 36. The economy will, like, totally collapse in about 4 years and we will all have to work like peasants to just live. However, the EUrasian Government then will have to implement measures to get people working in mines, undersea, in dirty nuclear power plants, in slaughterhouses and you will not have a choice even if you are a vegetarian hippy environmentalist who hates water.

The Government will rule that people up to and including those of the age of 45 will have to engage in this slavery to keep the wheels turning. Atticus will be 46 and I 40 with 5 more years of cleaning the valves of a nuclear power station to go before I can choose a different job.

Those over 45 will have to recycle clothing i.e. do stitching work, dyeing, ironing, taking bobbles off jumpers etc.

I'm fecked I tell ya

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Well it's called the "Beaten Generation" because no matter what you do you're damned That's why I like it.

Call yourself a rat?

Mojito, anyone?

Auditor, have you been watching Troy tonight, or reading too much HG Wells? Then again ...

... I'll be in the pub across from Denge (Dungeness Power Station - there's a pub that does good chips just outside the power stn) with a cuppa ready, see yiz all after the shift ...

johnfás wrote:

Mojito, anyone?

speaking of which, where's Ard Taoiseach these days?

Ard Taoiseach has jumped ship it seems ... he just disappeared like tears in rain...

jaysus I could down a few of them mojitos if I didn't have a drinking problem

Auditor #9 wrote:

Ard Taoiseach has jumped ship it seems ... he just disappeared like tears in rain...

jaysus I could down a few of them mojitos if I didn't have a drinking problem

"Excuse me, I happened to be passing and I thought you
might like some coffee."

" Oh, that's very nice of you. Thank you. Oh, won't you
sit down?"

"Oh thank you. Cream?"

" No thank you, I take it black . . . . . . like my men."

Auditor #9 wrote:

Ard Taoiseach has jumped ship it seems ... he just disappeared like tears in rain...

jaysus I could down a few of them mojitos if I didn't have a drinking problem

Ard Taoiseach is deserting us at the moment in favour of real live debate in Debate Soc.
and a modicum of study. He will return before the supply of minaudis runs out I'm sure.

cactus flower wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

Ard Taoiseach has jumped ship it seems ... he just disappeared like tears in rain...

jaysus I could down a few of them mojitos if I didn't have a drinking problem

Ard Taoiseach is deserting us at the moment in favour of real live debate in Debate Soc.
and a modicum of study. He will return before the supply of minaudis runs out I'm sure.

Debate Soc...Debate Soc. The last thing you call a debating society is the debating society! It's so vulgar. I'll have you know I'm a proud member of both the University Philosophical and College Historical Societies or, as they're known in the biz, the Phil and the Hist.

I have not been posting regularly the past while as first I had to work over the weekend at the Trinity IV which was an amazing panjandrum of debating. IVs are fun, intense and rewardingly exhausting experiences. After this I have had lots of lectures, one of which was with Frances Ruane of the ESRI - she's completely stolen the SWOT analysis this site has on the Irish economy - MN should press charges of plagiarism, tutorials, another debats on Thursday - an chéad díospóireacht as Gaeilge san Ollscoil Baile Átha Cliath, Coláiste na Trionóide riamh, a Maggies round, a political science essay, some episodes of the West Wing(with which I have some nice port and wine to accompany!) and having some relatives over for dinner today. It's been a busy week!

I'm glad to see everyone is still going well.

Ard Taoiseach it's good to see you. Are you learning a lot about communism these days in your lectures?

Auditor #9 wrote:

Ard Taoiseach it's good to see you. Are you learning a lot about communism these days in your lectures?

From various angles. I have economics and, since we're doing a macroeconomics module, communism/socialism would come up in terms of economic history and theory. We also learn about it in sociology, though less so in this module and from a political science perspective as a political idea and theory.

Thankfully, the Trinity College Economics department is economically-liberal so they don't recommend this ideology!

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

Ard Taoiseach it's good to see you. Are you learning a lot about communism these days in your lectures?

From various angles. I have economics and, since we're doing a macroeconomics module, communism/socialism would come up in terms of economic history and theory. We also learn about it in sociology, though less so in this module and from a political science perspective as a political idea and theory.

Thankfully, the Trinity College Economics department is economically-liberal so they don't recommend this ideology!

But the other one is broken ....

Good to see you indeed Ard Taoiseach. As you can see you are not forgotten.
We had a visit from a troll - you missed the defenestration, which I'm sure you would have enjoyed.

Auditor #9 wrote:

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

Ard Taoiseach it's good to see you. Are you learning a lot about communism these days in your lectures?

From various angles. I have economics and, since we're doing a macroeconomics module, communism/socialism would come up in terms of economic history and theory. We also learn about it in sociology, though less so in this module and from a political science perspective as a political idea and theory.

Thankfully, the Trinity College Economics department is economically-liberal so they don't recommend this ideology!

But the other one is broken ....

No it isn't, it's just experiencing one of its characteristic cyclical downturns. There have been far longer and deeper recessions before and the economy has always bounced back. The economy always adheres to its potential over the long-term.

cactus flower wrote:

Good to see you indeed Ard Taoiseach. As you can see you are not forgotten.

I am glad at that, cactus.

Quote :

We had a visit from a troll - you missed the defenestration, which I'm sure you would have enjoyed.

It would've been good to watch. MN must always remain a troll-free realm!

evercloserunion wrote:

I've got €30 to last me the next two weeks. Looks like all my drinking is goinmg to be in here for the next while (thankfully I haven't been so reckless with my Minaudis).

ecu, there will be an Israel/Gaza debate on in the GMB this Thursday followed by a generous reception. It's a free night out with substance!

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

Ard Taoiseach it's good to see you. Are you learning a lot about communism these days in your lectures?

From various angles. I have economics and, since we're doing a macroeconomics module, communism/socialism would come up in terms of economic history and theory. We also learn about it in sociology, though less so in this module and from a political science perspective as a political idea and theory.

Thankfully, the Trinity College Economics department is economically-liberal so they don't recommend this ideology!

But the other one is broken ....

No it isn't, it's just experiencing one of its characteristic cyclical downturns. There have been far longer and deeper recessions before and the economy has always bounced back. The economy always adheres to its potential over the long-term.

I came across this today, in a report on Davos:

Quote :

Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and the father of microcredit, saw a silver lining in the financial crisis.

“It’s not just disappointment and frustrations,” he said. “This is the greatest moment we have because things need to be changed, it’s as simple as that. We don’t want to go back to the same normalcy that we’re coming from. We will create a new normalcy which will stay and keep on moving and change the world.”