42% of entire Euro zone crisis paid for by Ireland according to Eurostat

Spindle

Poster Boy wrote: »

Spindle, we disagree as to portion of blame with regards to the debt blame being attributed to Ireland, which is of course the central topic of this thread. However on many other grounds, such as cuts should start from the top, we share common ground. Keep it up!

I think your view that we should not be to blame at all though is on the other side of madness as to we should be held to account totally for the Euro zone crisis. I think somewhere in the middle is where we should be at, blame should lay at the feet of the Irish, and certain blame should lay on the feet of the rest of the Euro Zone.

You have got to remember that Ireland's banking hole, cost about 62 billion, Greece(not a banking crisis) on the other hand has cost something like 250+ billion, who knows what else is hiding in there and elsewhere. So to think that Ireland is footing the Euro Zone Crisis is laughable, and also even to think that Euro zone members think our problems are worthy of mention at the top of the agenda is again laughable, there are a lot bigger problems out there than our self fulled banking crisis.

Yes Ireland did attract capital from dodgy dealings but the people within the country fueled the debt crisis we now have, by living on borrowed money, the banks aided in the fueling by going out and seeking money of there own free will and borrowing it.

Poster Boy

Vladimir Kurtains wrote: »

The challenge to the Anglo Promissory Notes is largely academic in my view.

If the state loses, we will have to find an alternative means of financing the Anglo mess anyway.

Why?

If the law was broken, the action must be reversed.

The Republic of Ireland claims its allegiance from its citizens on the basis that it will act in accordance with their democratic wishes, as vested in BnaH. The obligation of the law therefore is to uphold the rights of Irish citizens - and protect them.

If we cannot have decisions made in our courts that redress unjust decisions, we should just give up - because that would indicate that there is effectively no meaningful law.

Vladimir Kurtains wrote: »

If it wins, the conspiracy theorists are just going to think that the judiciary are in the pockets of the government and will do what they say.

With respect, do you not think that it is a very wise consideration of any poor unfortunate sod who is taking a case not to be aware that the judge hearing will have been a political appointment?

That awareness and calculation happens every case of any substance.

Anyone who is unfamiliar with the courts and enters in without such consideration is in my opinion naive.

Chips Lovell

Poster Boy wrote: »

If the law was broken, the action must be reversed.

Yes, but the point is we'll then have to find a legal means of plugging the gap left by the prom notes.

Poster Boy

Spindle wrote: »

I think your view that we should not be to blame at all though is on the other side of madness

At no stage have I said that "we should not be to blame at all".

What I have asserted is that by being seen to be seemingly willing to accept a disproportionate amount of blame, we are getting fixed with far more odious "debt" than is our due. The dictum of "Weakness attracts Attack" appears to have been borne out by the process to date.

I want to reiterate a quote I stated earlier in case you didn't see it, from Eamon de Valera:

"The most dangerous thing during negotiations is reasonableness".

Our present leaders would do well to learn this if nothing else from one of their predecessors.

K-9

Poster Boy wrote: »

With respect, do you not think that it is a very wise consideration of any poor unfortunate sod who is taking a case not to be aware that the judge hearing will have been a political appointment?

That awareness and calculation happens every case of any substance.

Anyone who is unfamiliar with the courts and enters in without such consideration is in my opinion naive.

Ah now we verge on the Conspiracy Theory. The guy who brought the challenge over the Childrens referendum managed fine, Patricia McKenna, Kathy Synnott etc.

Poster Boy

K-9 wrote: »

So what pressure did the ECB put on Ireland to introduce the unlimited guarantee?

Unfortunately because they refuse to release the correspondence, we don't know.

What we do know is that there is correspondence they are refusing to release that led up to the central fatal decisions.

In the absence of full and proper disclosure, do you really think it is unreasonable for them to have major questions and little confidence?

- Particularly when it is costing €9,000 from every man, woman, and child in the country?

K-9

Poster Boy wrote: »

Unfortunately because they refuse to release the correspondence, we don't know.

What we do know is that there is correspondence they are refusing to release that led up to the central fatal decisions.

In the absence of full and proper disclosure, do you really think it is unreasonable for them to have major questions and little confidence?

- Particularly when it is costing €9,000 from every man, woman, and child in the country?

I think you are getting the guarantee and the bailout mixed up, often happens. There has been little suggestion Europe interfered with the guarantee that caused the whole mess, there is evidence to suggest there was pressure before the bailout.

Poster Boy

K-9 wrote: »

Ah now we verge on the Conspiracy Theory

Fair enough, we cannot agree. I have outlined my reasons why potential plaintiffs should be cognisant of judges having been made by political appointment, something I am aware of from limited experience.

Regarding Supreme Court challenges in general, with the exception of the Children's Referendum, I think you will find if you check that the vast majority of successful "controversial" cases (ie unfavoured by the government) prior to 2000 - such as the McKenna case you refer to.

I am not saying I disrespect the SC rulings since 2000, but simply noting there appears to have been a tendency away from finding in plaintiff's favour when actions have been taken against the state.

It would be unwise of potential plaintiffs to not be aware of such.

Poster Boy

K-9 wrote: »

I think you are getting the guarantee and the bailout mixed up, often happens. There has been little suggestion Europe interfered with the guarantee that caused the whole mess, there is evidence to suggest there was pressure before the bailout.

Apologies, I should have been more concise. There was pressure in both circumstances. Ahead of the guarantee, Lenihen was apparently told by Christine Lagarde, now head of IMF, that he should "not let any bank fail". I am not saying she herself acted with malicious intent, however she and others appear to have exerted undue influence.

dlouth15

Poster Boy wrote: »

Unfortunately because they refuse to release the correspondence, we don't know.

What we do know is that there is correspondence they are refusing to release that led up to the central fatal decisions.

In the absence of full and proper disclosure, do you really think it is unreasonable for them to have major questions and little confidence?

- Particularly when it is costing €9,000 from every man, woman, and child in the country?

I think in fairness this correspondence that the ECB are keeping secret happened after the Irish guarantee was in place. What is alledged (and I'm inclined to agree) is that the secret correspondence from the ECB was about pressuring us into the Troika bailout of 2010. What has been suggested (and again I'm inclined to agree) is that the ECB issued a veiled threat to withdraw ELA (emergency liquidity assistance) for Irish banks thus bringing them to their knees if we didn't enter into a bailout from the Troika on their terms.

(edit: was typing this when the other posts came in)

Poster Boy

dlouth15 wrote: »

I think in fairness this correspondence that the ECB are keeping secret happened after the Irish guarantee was in place. What is alledged (and I'm inclined to agree) is that the secret correspondence from the ECB was about pressuring us into the Troika bailout of 2010. What has been suggested (and again I'm inclined to agree) is that the ECB issued a veiled threat to withdraw ELA (emergency liquidity assistance) for Irish banks thus bringing them to their knees if we didn't enter into a bailout from the Troika on their terms.

(edit: was typing this when the other posts came in)

Thank you for clarifying what I was trying to say, but lacking conciseness in doing so! :pac:

Spindle

Poster Boy wrote: »

At no stage have I said that "we should not be to blame at all".

What I have asserted is that by being seen to be seemingly willing to accept a disproportionate amount of blame, we are getting fixed with far more odious "debt" than is our due. The dictum of "Weakness attracts Attack" appears to have been borne out by the process to date.

I want to reiterate a quote I stated earlier in case you didn't see it, from Eamon de Valera:

"The most dangerous thing during negotiations is reasonableness".

Our present leaders would do well to learn this if nothing else from one of their predecessors.

You are a blend of Joe Higgins and a market trader

It is true that the finance markets are probably trying to extract and profit out of Ireland as much as possible that is what they do after all exploit situations to generate profit. Profit and greed is the single biggest factor in the global mess. If everyone shared out the profit more then everything could be more balanced, but alas we live in a world where I think we could never get this to work.

I am going to bow out at this point of the debate with these points

We should try and negotiate to get a better deal on how we are paying back our banking debt (yes we created a lot of this debt), but we will still have to pay it back. How do we negotiate this I am not sure, maybe we need to play the bad boy for a bit??

The only problem is that, the banking crisis aside, our country is still running a massive deficit, if we don't adjust that we are heading to bail out 2 and all the mortgage default that is down the line is yet to pop up.

Now for a bit of bulls**t bingo

You need to steady the ship, before you can raise the sails and go forward to negotiate the choppy seas of the international financial market hiding in the pirate cove.

dlouth15

Poster Boy wrote: »

Apologies, I should have been more concise. There was pressure in both circumstances. Ahead of the guarantee, Lenihen was apparently told by Christine Lagarde, now head of IMF, that he should "not let any bank fail". I am not saying she herself acted with malicious intent, however she and others appear to have exerted undue influence.

I think what we can certainly infer from the ECB pressure is that if we wanted to do something like Iceland (i.e. letting professional bond holders take their share of the loss) we would have had no assistance from the ECB. Both those countries have their own central banks. Therefore there is no chance of the ATMs running dry (so to speak) if a bank fails and new institutions are set up in its place. Without a central bank standing by there is no chance of avoiding a bank run.

Poster Boy

Spindle wrote: »

You are a blend of Joe Higgins and a market trader

LOL. Thanks Spindle, given me a good laugh

Thanks for your intelligent input, even if we disagree. I look forward to debating with you some other time.

K-9

Poster Boy wrote: »

Apologies, I should have been more concise. There was pressure in both circumstances. Ahead of the guarantee, Lenihen was apparently told by Christine Lagarde, now head of IMF, that he should "not let any bank fail". I am not saying she herself acted with malicious intent, however she and others appear to have exerted undue influence.

Yeah, that's a very general statement and that appears to be the stances of European Governments who bailed out banks. What it doesn't mean is that Europe in anyway pressurised Ireland into introducing such a massive guarantee, one that guaranteed bondholders which everybody is pissed of about. Indeed it was widely reported at the time that other European Governments were angry at Ireland going it alone and journalists reported Lenihan ignoring calls from European representaives. On that basis it would appear Lenihan and Cowen acted alone.

dlouth15 wrote: »

I think in fairness this correspondence that the ECB are keeping secret happened after the Irish guarantee was in place. What is alledged (and I'm inclined to agree) is that the secret correspondence from the ECB was about pressuring us into the Troika bailout of 2010. What has been suggested (and again I'm inclined to agree) is that the ECB issued a veiled threat to withdraw ELA (emergency liquidity assistance) for Irish banks thus bringing them to their knees if we didn't enter into a bailout from the Troika on their terms.

(edit: was typing this when the other posts came in)

No disagreement there, the ECB was keeping the Irish banks going, NAMA as well and the Government was in denial about the need for a bailout, sure it was in denial about everything from 08 on.

Hidalgo

Poster Boy wrote: »

Unfair... and illegal.

Although many of my points have been disputed, no once has anyone refuted that the Act - and all that flows from it - is in breach of A15.4.5 of BnaH.



Again we can agree - our nation was too over dependent on one sector.

However just because our economy went pear-shaped, that did not give the right to ECB linked gambling houses to take advantage of our difficulty in a predatory manner, which is what has been happening.



We would not need such finance if:

A) We don't use it pay off unsecured bad foreign investments.

We don't pay well over the odds to our more senior public sector employees for substandard work.


Standing up close to this, its very hard for Irish people to take it all in. Because its designed to be that way.

Its not actually that hard to understand when one stands back - its a bit like "near and faraway" from Fr Ted. The way I see it is this:


1. As long as we have elected and full-time senior members of our administration paying themselves far more than comparable employees in other non-bankrupt states, there is no strong negotiation position for our interests to be best represented to our "EU friends". Imagine you had an employee who asked for a sub, after first arriving in his porsche; you would laugh at him - and I think its unreasonable not to expect our EU friends to be quietly laughing at our lot for the same reason. Bear in mind Eamon Gilmore is getting paid more than David Cameron, even though Cameron actually leads a state 15 times the size of our population.

2. It is in the interests of our EU friends to leave their toxic debt parked with us. This is the quid pro quo for our leaders continuing to borrow money in order to pay themselves excessively. In short it effectively operates as a bribe.

3. As long as there is effectively no accountability for the biggest financial collapse of a western state in recent times, there will be no recovery and we will continue to be perceived not as "the good boy" in the class, but as the weakling for predatory bullies to take advantage of.

I am genuinely sorry that I do not have all the answers, but I do know that the current purported "answer" is incorrect - and that we must start asking much more robust questions of our government. It's two years on since the current administration was elected. Since then they have failed to:

> Restore accountability (the most serious failure in my opinion).
> Failed to give leadership by reducing their own pay to an acceptable norm, and then tackle the public deficit.
> Failed to substantially re-negotiate the Big Fix, also incorrectly known as the national debt.


They have had their chance. Some of them I know as individuals are personable. However collectively they are failing. The last lot let the rot happen - this lot have allowed it to crystallize, which is worse in my opinion.

I am wondering what odds I would get from a bookies as to different leaders being in place in 12 months time?

Pretty much agree with your points. I don't think there will be a change og gov in the next 12 months however so personally I won't be rushing to the bookies, 18-24 months maybe.

Even if there was a change the difference would be minimal at best. After an iniatal bit of pandering to the electorate things would settle down as 'normal' Likewise, if the current gov were in power when FF & the Greens were, imo the situation today would be in the range of 5% better or worse.

The more things change, the more they stay the same and all that jazz

Poster Boy

dlouth15 wrote: »

I think what we can certainly infer from the ECB pressure is that if we wanted to do something like Iceland (i.e. letting professional bond holders take their share of the loss) we would have had no assistance from the ECB. Both those countries have their own central banks. Therefore there is no chance of the ATMs running dry (so to speak) if a bank fails and new institutions are set up in its place. Without a central bank standing by there is no chance of avoiding a bank run.

Good point, well made.

But to take another angle on it; what is supposed to be our ultimate central bank, the ECB, failed to properly police their Dublin branch - who in turn as we all know were failing to police the local Irish banks.

The buck really does go back to the ECB whatever way one looks at it.

Spindle

Poster Boy wrote: »

LOL. Thanks Spindle, given me a good laugh

Thanks for your intelligent input, even if we disagree. I look forward to debating with you some other time.

Your welcome

I think we will never agree on the fundamentals of what happened. Even though the banks were nationalised I still think they just predominantly nationalised our own native debt. There is some other debt wrapped in there as well though which we should not be on the hook for.

Also the method in which we are to pay this debt is wrong, and should be adjusted, but when your Government knows more about pulling pints and teaching kids, and cares more about the pot holes, how are they ever going to do anything???

Hidalgo

Poster Boy wrote: »

Good point, well made.

But to take another angle on it; what is supposed to be our ultimate central bank, the ECB, failed to properly police their Dublin branch - who in turn as we all know were failing to police the local Irish banks.

The buck really does go back to the ECB whatever way one looks at it.

IMO thats passing the buck to a degree. Yes the ECB is a higher watchdog but the Irish Central Bank was closer to the scene.

If I commit a crime is it my fault or the fault of the Gardaí for not preventing it
(over generalisng I know, but)

Zebra3

dvpower wrote: »

Ha. What selective logic.
So really, according to you, all banking debt in Europe is debt owed to Americans because they hold all credit default swaps and never trade them outside the US, and nor to their reinsurance companies ever sell bonds to non US investors. :rolleyes:

Wtf?

I never said that.

I was talking only about the 20Bn euro referred to in the article.

Why are you making stuff up?

dvpower

Zebra3 wrote: »

Wtf?

I never said that.

I was talking only about the 20Bn euro referred to in the article.


Why are you making stuff up?

The 20bn in the article refers to Irish and German debt, not American debt.

That was your invention.

Poster Boy

News just off the wires -

Exclusive: ECB rejects Irish bid on promissory note - sources

Reuters wrote:

The sources said the ECB's Governing Council discussed the plan for the first time at a meeting on Wednesday and Thursday and agreed that it amounted to "monetary financing" of the Irish government, banned under article 123 of the EU treaty.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/26/us-ecb-ireland-idUSBRE90P0DT20130126

Obviously I prefer be proven wrong on this, but as I already predicted it is my believe the current government is going to get nowhere, not least because they lack credibility among their EU "friends" by overpaying themselves - but also, critically, there is no accountability being seen to occur here.

We are going to keep on getting walked on as long as we show good faith in what is increasingly blindingly obvious is a farce.

They - dragging us down with them - are getting nowhere.

Hence, I want to remind people of tomorrows march in North Cork; Ballyhea at 11.30, followed by Charleville at 12.30
http://namawinelake.wordpress.com/2013/01/23/a-milestone-we-never-thought-wed-see-week-100-in-ballyhea/

People can and need to do something about this. If nothing else, but one or two other people attend tomorrow because of this thread, it will have been worth it.

radioactiveman

Whatever about the debt that you could argue is "national" debt in the sense that it was brought about through our own property bubble, and borrowing by people in general...

Whatever about that (and I'm not saying I agree with it, just that it's one point of view: a. that banks like AIB and Bank of Ireland should be paid for entirely by ordinary people because the country as a whole didn't supervise them, and b. that debt run up by a collapse in tax revenues is our problem not somebody elses, and that it accounts for a large portion of our debt).

OK: Suppose you take that point of view, is it not a different matter entirely that ordinary people should pay for Anglo bonds? Bonds of a company that the market had already decided was bust before we started honouring them (i.e. share price at 0)?

So is everyone not unanimous on this? Why is there not a petition to government to instantly default on these bonds? Is it worth being in the EU if this is the kind of union we're going to have? This is openly dishonest.

smellsfunny

Enda Kenny is like their lap dog and are making a fool of him and he can't even see it:mad:

We need someone that is not a lick arse but since the politicians are getting so well paid they don't care. They only care about power and their pay check.

Doc Ruby

smellsfunny wrote: »

Enda Kenny is like their lap dog and are making a fool of him and he can't even see it:mad:

He can see it just fine but he doesn't give a shite because...

smellsfunny wrote: »

the politicians are getting so well paid they don't care. They only care about power and their pay check.

Pension! The man is closing in on 70 fast, you think he cares about anything else?