November 27, 2010

Is Ireland an Example of What Could Happen to U.S.?

According to this article Ireland is looking at an €85 Billion bailout ($112.5 Billion U.S.) and its coming too late. The middle and lower classes are paying dearly for it. Though some in these classes have homes and mortgages, and jobs everything they have goes toward trying to keep their homes that they stop spending money on food and instead go to soup kitchens that are supplied by churches. Their government has made €15 Billion in budget cuts ($19.8 Billion U.S.) and still making more in other areas such as private sector jobs which pay has been decreased by nearly 13% over the last three years and 25,000 of those jobs have been completely cut since then. Starting to sound a bit like the situation we’re in? Just think of the implications of what has happened there, which has yet to still have effect on other things such as food markets, being driven down because few in Ireland have the money to pay for food therefore seeking what they can get for charity, driving demand down, supply up and ultimately prices down hurting the food market. There would also be the housing market, which in this article and in other situations we see the market for that has burst. People in Ireland who are now forced to sell homes they can no longer afford for nearly half of the buying price. Job demand is only rising along with unemployment rates. Just to think there is over €10 Billion ($13.2 Billion) in cuts and €5 Billion ( $6.6 Billion) in taxes being implemented, I’m literally seeing a negative affect here. A source in the article states that those who are higher income earners will pay the most in taxes, which I could see how that works when you have all of these people who were once making enough to actually be able to pay taxes are now no longer able to. Will that soon be a large portion of the U.S. population in the same sticky, depressing situation? Any food trade that we have going with Ireland will all but come to a screeching halt with the demand going down. But who knows if that is what will happen? At this point we have yet to feel those exact effects. Here is hoping that it won’t go that far and something will restore the consumer confidence back in to the markets and it won’t sink much farther.

Katie Compher

No comments: