The Big Bailout of the Eurozone (Another crisis coming? - Seriously)

[Hardy]

Phew.

[Capt Pat]

We can't allow ourselves to be held responsible for money lent to the Nama crowd by the big banks and the international banks. We have to stand up to them and make them accountable for the mistakes they made.

[Zapatista]

We can't allow ourselves to be held responsible for money lent to the Nama crowd by the big banks and the international banks. We have to stand up to them and make them accountable for the mistakes they made.

Only emigration or death will relieve you of paying the debts.

[muppet]

http://www.rte.ie/business/2010/0531/anglo.html

Fresh €2 billion provided for Anglo
Monday, 31 May 2010 16:16
The Government has committed another €2 billion in funding to Anglo Irish Bank. The move comes as Anglo's restructuring plan is being submitted to the European Commission today.

A statement from the Department of Finance said the bank needed new funds because of the losses it had taken on the loans transferred to the National Asset Management Agency and because of further losses on its remaining loans.

The €10 billion first batch of loans from Anglo were transferred to NAMA at a discount of 55%.

On March 31, Finance Minister Brian Lenihan provided €8.3 billion to Anglo, on top of the €4 billion the Government put into the bank last year. At the time, the Minister indicated that the bank could need another €10 billion. The €2 billion announced today is part of that €10 billion.

The €8.3 billion, plus today's €2 billion, are being given in the form of a promissory note, which means the payments will be stretched over a number of years.

The Department of Finance said the bank's future would be determined by talks between it, the Commission and the bank on its restructuring plan. It said the Finance Minister's aim was to minimise the cost to the taxpayer of restructuring Anglo.

[Rossfan]

[. It said the Finance Minister's aim was to minimise the cost to the taxpayer of restructuring Anglo.

Pull the other one Minister.

[muppet]

A statement from the Department of Finance said the bank needed new funds because of the losses it had taken on the loans transferred to the National Asset Management Agency and because of further losses on its remaining loans.

This is an interesting comment.

NAMA, we were told, buys the loans at a discount. However if the State has to pump money into the bank to compensate for the discount are we not simply paying twice for the same (toxic) loan? Would it not be cheaper to put all of Anglo (and most of the others) into NAMA and be done with it?

Of course if we hadn't done the guarantee...........ach sin sceal eile.

[Dinny Breen]

god I hate on-call but as someone once said the economy depends about as much on economists as the weather does on weather forecasters...

[muppet]

http://www.rte.ie/business/2010/0609/banks3.html

Honohan report (PDF)

Taoiseach Brian Cowen said the reports vindicated the approach taken by the Government to deal with the crisis and confirmed the need for a bank guarantee scheme. He referred to Governor Honohan's finding that the collapse of Anglo Irish Bank would have cost far more than the guarantee.

This is the greatest load of spin from an Irishman that I've ever heard. The report clearly lays the blame for the Irish version of the crisis in Ireland. Cowen has consistently blamed 'international factors'. The report says that Anglo and Irish Nationwide were 'well down the road to insolvency before...' the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

From the report: "It is clear that a major failure in terms of bank regulation and the maintenance of financial stability failure occurred."

Cowen was Minister for Finance during the period that the seeds of this 'maintenance of financial stability failure' were sown and grew rapidly. He should resign on this alone. But we won't hold our breath.

[seafoid]

"By 2015 we will have seen what happens when jobs disappear forever . . .Ireland is at the start of an enormous, unplanned social experiment on how rising unemployment affects crime, domestic violence, drug abuse, suicide and a litany of other social pathologies."
–Morgan Kelly, December 2009


"Corrective regulatory intervention for the system as a whole was "delayed and timid", and a greater increase in capital requirements on risky loans implemented several years earlier would have made a major difference"
Honohan report, June 2010

[Bogball XV]

Excellent article by Rossa White of Davy's (unusal for an economist with some of these boys to produce something worth reading)
http://www.finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews/article_1019084.shtml

and a nice reaction from Michael Hennigan of finfacts to yesterday's reports

http://www.finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews/article_1019879.shtml

[Billys Boots]

That's depressing stuff.

[muppet]

That's depressing stuff.

If you can't quite decipher what the likes of McWilliam and co are talking about here is quick explanation of Economics.

http://www.standupeconomist.com/videos-public/

[armaghniac]

Just a quote from the above, your rewards for f**king up the country

Patrick Neary, Chief Executive of the Financial Regulator, retired with a secret €630,000 payoff: He was given a special €202,000 pay-off, plus a retirement lump-sum of €428,000, according to terms disclosed by Finance Minister Brian Lenihan.  In addition, he is receiving an annual pension of €142,670.

Bank of Ireland chief executive Brian Goggin earned €12.46m in 2004-2009. He is on a full pension of  €650,000-a-year at less than 60.

[seafoid]

I saw a graph in the FT showing the exposure of European banks to Irish debt. France , German and Dutch banks have exposure in excess of €200bn each.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/3/31794cd6-7536-11df-a7e2-00144feabdc0.html

The Irish times has a great article by Paul Krugman on the dangers of deviating from Keynesian stimulus.. except that Ireland is doing to exact opposite of what he recommends..

[muppet]

I saw a graph in the FT showing the exposure of European banks to Irish debt. France , German and Dutch banks have exposure in excess of €200bn each.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/3/31794cd6-7536-11df-a7e2-00144feabdc0.html

The Irish times has a great article by Paul Krugman on the dangers of deviating from Keynesian stimulus.. except that Ireland is doing to exact opposite of what he recommends..

Obvious then why the EU approved all of our guarantee/bailout/NAMA schemes especially as the tab will be picked up ultimately by the Irish taxpayer, rather than those banks.