The Motor trade and RTE

[cats pajamas]

Bill Cullen is in the papers on the radio on the television as the saviour of the Irish Economy. How ? Why?
He was on Pat Kenny’s morning programme last Thurday and stated that BMW produced the cars with the lowest carbon emissions. He stated that cars must be changed every ten years. That the Greens had destroyed the motor trade and presumably by extension the Irish economy.
In the past ten years an average of 150,000 new cars have been sold each year. Each car represents an average of 12,000 euro exported directly from the economy without a single Irish Job created. This represents a loss of 18 billion to the Irish economy. This money was generally borrowed from Irish banks.
Now consider this! Why did car ownership increase between 1990 and 2009 by 250%
The increase happened in parallel with the building boom. (1)The banks made available finance to purchase houses totally dependant on car ownership. (2) A compliant government to aquiese to unsustainable planning practice. Unregulated banks willing to loan for both house and car purchase.(3) builders constructing inaccessible car dependant houses and(4) motor dealers selling the solution to the inaccessibility.
The first three legs have been indentified and vilified over the past six months.
The fourth leg has been on constant rotation on radio television and claiming that the solution is to sell more cars.
The ruin of the banks has been stated as reckless borrowing to the construction industry. Property is a least a long term asset. Motors are a rapidly depreciating one. Much of the current ruinous personal debt is due to unsustainable personal borrowing for expensive foreign imported cars. The construction boom created unsustainable debt but also created jobs. The motor industry left us with nothing but scrap metal
Ironic that the fourth villain is allowed unfettered access to the airwaves as the saving entrepreneurial hero. Why ?
RTE declines to comment on free BMW cars for leading broadcasters - The Irish Times - Mon, Mar 16, 2009

[Raketemensch]

How exactly was he represented as a hero? Have you got a quote please?

[SPN]

Bill Cullen is in the papers on the radio on the television as the saviour of the Irish Economy. How ? Why?
He was on Pat Kenny’s morning programme last Thurday and stated that BMW produced the cars with the lowest carbon emissions. He stated that cars must be changed every ten years. That the Greens had destroyed the motor trade and presumably by extension the Irish economy.

I have a 1990 BMW that is still going strong, and is still one of the best looking cars in town.

Quality design, and quality engineering, aren't things the Renault importer is likely to understand.

(2) A compliant government to aquiese to unsustainable planning practice. Unregulated banks willing to loan for both house and car purchase.

By Government I assume you are referring to the three establishment parties. Fine Gael and Labour were just as good as Fianna Fail when it came to taking donations from developers and banks, and Fine Gael Councillors and Labour Councillors were just as accommodating as Fianna Fail Councillors when it came to rezoning land owned by people who had donated to their respective parties.

[EarlyBird]

Bill Cullen is in the papers on the radio on the television as the saviour of the Irish Economy. How ? Why?
He was on Pat Kenny’s morning programme last Thurday and stated that BMW produced the cars with the lowest carbon emissions. He stated that cars must be changed every ten years. That the Greens had destroyed the motor trade and presumably by extension the Irish economy.
In the past ten years an average of 150,000 new cars have been sold each year. Each car represents an average of 12,000 euro exported directly from the economy without a single Irish Job created. This represents a loss of 18 billion to the Irish economy. This money was generally borrowed from Irish banks.
Now consider this! Why did car ownership increase between 1990 and 2009 by 250%
The increase happened in parallel with the building boom. (1)The banks made available finance to purchase houses totally dependant on car ownership. (2) A compliant government to aquiese to unsustainable planning practice. Unregulated banks willing to loan for both house and car purchase.(3) builders constructing inaccessible car dependant houses and(4) motor dealers selling the solution to the inaccessibility.
The first three legs have been indentified and vilified over the past six months.
The fourth leg has been on constant rotation on radio television and claiming that the solution is to sell more cars.
The ruin of the banks has been stated as reckless borrowing to the construction industry. Property is a least a long term asset. Motors are a rapidly depreciating one. Much of the current ruinous personal debt is due to unsustainable personal borrowing for expensive foreign imported cars. The construction boom created unsustainable debt but also created jobs. The motor industry left us with nothing but scrap metal
Ironic that the fourth villain is allowed unfettered access to the airwaves as the saving entrepreneurial hero. Why ?
RTE declines to comment on free BMW cars for leading broadcasters - The Irish Times - Mon, Mar 16, 2009

Bill Cullen is only interested in one thing...himself. He has been an RTE golden boy for years now, I remember when they used to wheel him out on the Late Late once a year so that the nation could ooooh and ahhhh at his massive ego. He was one of the poster boys that we were given by RTE, an icon of the 'Celtic Tiger' (RIP). Now the motor "industry" in this country is finished and Bill is in panic mode.. RTE is giving him free airtime, why?. The answer to that is pretty obvious.

[euroboy]

You know who is curiously no longer always plastered on RTE, that D4 one from 'houses in the sun'. You know her 'buy at 1000000000000000', it will be worth more tomorrow. Last time I saw her, she was on the new year's eve RTE show, about how she thought the market would go.

RTE have alot to be answerable for.

[Gimpanzee]

Bill Cullen...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EJjNk3f5TI&feature=related]YouTube - Bill Cullen - Bootiful Girlie Boy's Legs[/ame]

[TradCat]

If they want to sell more cars they will have to drop their prices. The Greens did not create the credit boom which made business easy for the likes of Cullen. He should be happy for all the soft years and now concentrate on selling cars at a price people can afford. That's the business he is in and the way he tells it he's a great business man. Well let's see him doing some business.

The business class are worse than the unions for wanting the government to fix the market for them. They already have VRT which prevents us from enjoying the single market.

Stop whining Bill. Get up off you backside and get those prices down.

[Watcher1]

Bill has been complaining about the rate of VRT for years. Now the rate of VRT has been reduced (well, restructured in a way that you can buy a car with reduced VRT) and now the guy is still complaining. It seemed like one of his spokesmen was on this site after Bill appeared on RTE blaming the Greens for destroying the motor industry. For some bizare reason this "spokesperson" thought that the VRT changes were the cause of the "greatest destruction of wealth this country has ever seen". As if a car is wealth. They also couldn't seem to grasp the idea that if his second hand car had reduced in price due to the VRT changes, the replacement car was also reduced thereby creating a win on the purchase of the new car vs the loss on the sale of his new car.

Bill is just a mouth. Good businessman presumably since he is where he is today after taking a loss making company in the 80's/early 90's and turning it into the mamoth company it was. He did sell it though and only kept a small number of outlets I believe. He also went heavy into property development so he is probably feeling a bit squeezed.

As far as I know, his main interests are in industries hit the worst - propertry, hotels and motor sales.

Poor Bill. No wonder he is comlaining like a mad thing.

[sauntersplash]

The business class are worse than the unions for wanting the government to fix the market for them. They already have VRT which prevents us from enjoying the single market.

.

"Business class"? What is the business class? Are you referring to business owners? Managers? Entrepeneurs? People who have jobs in business'?

What distinguishes them as a "class"? Their lifestyle? Their income? Their politics? Their culture? Their traditions?

No such thing as the Business class I'm afraid. Time to complain about someone else.

[TradCat]

"Business class"? What is the business class?

It is the people who lobby government through there their associations to keep competition out of their industries and reduce public choice.

The Vintners for example are part of the business class and see their role as protecting the interests of their members against the consumer interest.

The Irish Dental Association lobbies the government to keep competition out of their business.

IBEC members would be part of the business class too. It's not that they are all bad but they don't like competition and are not pro-free market when it comes to their own interests.