Freakonomics

*This post does not in anyway condone the actions of either the crazy lending of the banks or the crazy speculation of some property developers.

But on every radio show or tv show I hear or see, all callers/panelists quickly blame all our countries woes on the developers and the banks. To a certain extent I agree, while also throwing a large portion of blame on Bertie Ahern and Fianna Fail for the way they ran the country during our boom years. At this point I'd like to make a clear distinction between the boom years and the Celtic Tiger era, as far as I'm concerned, the Tiger died in 2002 (I give my reasons why in this post).

But the consumer spending splurges of Ireland's citizens should not be overlooked. How crazy was the consumer?.....Well I was shocked to read some figures from the motor industry today. For the purchase of new cars the average equity required by a customer to be approved finance is 32%. Who is so desperate for a 09 Reg that they are willing to pay interest on 70% of their purchase!? Especially at a time when layoffs and paycuts are likely to continue into 2010. As an example I looked at the best selling car in Ireland for 8 of the last 10 years the Ford Focus. For an entry level 5 door its around €21,330 (as listed on www.ford.ie), this doesn't include VRT of 20% which is an additional €4,226 bringing the total to €25,556. By this figure the average consumer buying a Focus, puts up €7,667 of the money themselves and gets a loan of €17,889 with a typical APR of 9.93% (APR from Irish Times Motoring supplement).

This recession has brought the price of second hand cars plummeting, and it is widely acknowledged that there is now great value in the second hand market. I have been informed by a car dealer that www.carzone.ie is the site used by most dealers now to gauge the price of the second hand market. So on this I found a 2003 Focus (from a reputable dealer) with better specifications than model on ford.ie with a list price of €7,500. Seen as this is the list price it is highly likely that you could purchase that car for up to €1,000 less than that.

This is what was/is wrong with Ireland. We appear to be ridiculously materialistic.....does it really matter if your Reg is 03 or 09?? What other major differences are there between a 03 and 09 car? Theres no new car smell, not as fuel efficient as new models and the need to get it serviced more often as there is more miles on the clock... I can't think of anything else. Who would spend €17,889 plus interest for these differences? The answer is a lot of people, because results just released by Peugeot show that 70% of their potential customers were turned down for finance as they do not even meet this minimum equity level. If in the midst of a recession the Irish people are still trying to buy new cars with no money and less prospects, imagine the spending levels during the boom?? And bear in mind these figures are only for a middle of the road Ford Focus, there's an awful lot of more expensive SUV's on our roads.

Yes we had reckless banks, reckless developers and reckless politicians..... but it is impossible to ignore the fact that the Irish consumer was just as reckless. Everyone is clambering over one another to get politicians to accept accountability for their actions(as well they should), but perhaps it is now time the Irish people began accepting accountability for their actions too.

It is highly likely that in the next few weeks we will have major protests in the streets by the public sector trade unions, these strikes as well as the actions of consumers in the motor industry, make it abundantly clear that a lot of people do not realise how F****d we are as a country economically. As they say in cork we should all be seriously Freaked! Forget Steven Levitt and Stephen J Dubner's freakonomics, Ireland in 2009 has entered a period of Freakedonomics, Where the more you read about our economic situation, the more freaked you get!

Irish shoppers attitude