Moving house, I can vouch, is extremely stressful. Not the actual moving bit, like packing all your possessions into boxes and helping the man with a van transport them.
People make a fuss about that, in the same way as some folks do about making Christmas dinner… why? Put the turkey in the oven, drink several units of alcohol, take it out, place it on the table. Sorted.
The worst thing about moving house is the financial worry of it all. Especially if you buy first, then sell. If you tell an estate agent you have to sell your existing gaff when make an offer on another one, they will laugh in your face. Chains are no-nos, you see.
So, after securing a millstone mortgage on the new place, I had a personal news blackout (as well as a few beer-induced ones) as I hoped the buyers of the old manor were doing the same thing. I mean, think about it. The Euro is on the verge of implosion, and the Shinners think closer union with Britain - in the light of its veto on closer fiscal governance for the Eurozone - is the way forward. Strange times indeed.
Then you have other Little Irelanders talking about a return to the Punt, for pity’s sake. Do that, and our money – those of us who have any at all – would be as valuable as confetti at a League One footballer’s wedding. Ibec would love it, as exports would be cheaper. We would hate it (even its current advocates) as everything would be more expensive. It would be like Weimar Germany all over again, as people filled up their wheelbarrows with currency before heading off to the shops for a loaf of bread.
These were the thoughts filling – and wrecking – my head as I waited for the sale to close on the old house. That and the image of someone being swept out to sea in the mother-father-and-grandparents of economic rip tides, watching the safe and familiar shore disappearing forever, as the financial gap between buying and selling widened, with house prices sinking still further. Not nice.
Thankfully, it all worked out in the end. Oh… and the broadband is back.
Happy days, despite it all.
11 comments:
Congratulations, GM, plenty of time to relax now. Tough Times, though.
Thanks, Wanderer.
Flogging the manor in this climate is quite something. So well done. A vendor with a sense of reality - few of them about. I hope you'll be happy in the new gaff.
seasons greetingS to you and yours MR GM, congrats on on your move upmarket,i take it you took advantage of the deflation, so much of it around these days, ihad a serious attack myself recently, you see dah misuss moved in with a 20 yr old unemployed brasilian samba dancer whose only posession appears to be one under sized mankini and a pair of flip flops says she likes his moves,,my last wife at least left me for the local rolls royce dealer who had several suits of clothes WIMMMIN eh. cheerio BH
@Ella. Thanks. You really would have had to experienced it to realise just how stressful it was.
@BH. Cheers for that, BH. All the best for Xmas yourself.
I'm sorry to hear about your missus and Mr Mankini.
Good to see you have arrived through the storm of stress GM.
You say, GM "Strange times indeed," yes, without doubt. The country crossed the rubicon in 1992, it got steadily more bizzare every year. Then again it was always bizzare. Can't blame the EU - well maybe a few German and international Banks, among other things - for that. Irish generated, mismanagement and a population gaining kudos from inane fixations and delusions.
Oh and GM mustn't joke about hyperinflation:) It would make the last five years look positively organised. Your house move would have seemed completely stress free. Any break-up of the Euro would be an unmitigated disaster for Ireland, there would be no precedence for it, on the Island. If there was no immediate pegging (within hours) to Sterling then it would be game over for the Irish economy. The currency would devalue so fast anyway, anyone owning a loaf of bread would be a new accidental millionaire.
A return to the Punt is not only laughable, it perfectly demonstrates the delusion of grandeur which has burrowed its way into the Irish psyche. Folks Ireland is in hock to the Troika. The Punt would be a worthless, for the foreseeable future, as water in a drain.
All the government can do now is protect the most vulnerable and stop getting in the way of economic forces which could drag this country out of the ditch. They should - even at this stage - draw the attention of the Troika and their own ministers attention away from revenue collection and try to understand basic economic principles, most notably that, TAXING AND CUTTING IS NOT GOING TO WORK.
What's more there is no such thing as an organised default. (A term bandied about in certain circles in Erin). Just default and all it entails - which are not good.
Yes, D. The talk from some quarters of a "Punt Nua" (and not in jest, as in the internet version that went around) says it all. We can only get money to pay our monthly 1.3b public services bill from the bailout... If these half-wits, many of them anti-Europe anyway, think a New Punt is the answer they are more delusional than we thought.
It's scary enough GM, when Irish teenages start talking in american accents but when grown Irish men and women start believing that Ireland is suddenly an economic powerhouse of Europe and that TAXATION, will save the economy, well it's time to call the funny farm. Yes GM, there are many "GROWN ADULTS" on this island who actually believe that the Punt is a potentially credible currency. It does a disservice to the word delusional.
GM reality IS, Property rates, AHEM TAXES, which will go north when the useless councils get their greedy fists on it, are just the start, or continuance should I say. Stealth seems to work, if you call something, say, green for long enough it becomes green, to cetrain delusional individuals....
GM the fire service is to all intents and purposes a private company, in Ireland, now. Can you believe it? Is that globally unique?....Without a whisper........ So ok, you pay your PROPERTY TAX and if it happens to go up in flames you have to pay AGAIN to get it put out.......Back to the middle ages....Oh hold on, you'll be paying a third time (how Irish, is that?) because you'll also be paying be paying for the water.....Yes water which is being lost at the rate of 50% through leakages. The price of the meters would pay for an awful lot of hospital beds!!!! But hospital beds are not meters, they can't tell you how much water you're using. Like magic like.... Remember electonic voting, etc, etc, No wonder income tax wasn't touched yettttttttt.......... As it doesn't actually pay for anything, what's the point, why bother? Classic frog in a barrel. Let the people do the work for you. Even the IMF I'd say, can't believe their luck.....There's easy and then, there's the Irish.
Perhaps the best thing that could happen is if the "punt nua" did become a reality. If the economy did collapse, then the billions squandered and wasted on quangos, a backward educational system, ngo's, overseas aid, welfare careerists, and all the private sector cronies who have their noses in the trough, would hopefully come to an end. The IMF were a huge disappointment, they allowed the carpet baggers and gutter snipes to retain control of tax and expenditure. The lunacy and delusion here is mind boggling. And to listen to that yoke preaching from the aras, he that is paid over 200K and all expenses. And nobody really seems to give a damn about the plunder these hucksters are perpetrating on the country. They are worse than the British ever were.
I am trying to sell my property in the UK and move back to Ireland? Yes. True. I happen to like Ireland. But, as my Australian cousins says it is like poking butter up a porcupines exhaust pipe with a red hot needle.
The solution is here: http://twitpic.com/7mrdgj Find out more on http://www.facebook.com/PuntNua
Post a Comment