What ifs - bank guarantee and cabinet discussion

InReality

One thing that has interested me is that the "markets were going to open in a hour" narrative around the bank guaranteed decision.

Lets say that instead of approving it , the cabinet press release said they were consulting with the EU etc , and put off any decision.

What could have happened if the the rest of the cabinet had a day or so to think about it ?

Would anything have happened differently.

I go back and over in my own mind on this - I think a green minister or 2 might have resigned if they had time to think about it.

Maybe examiner-ship for the banks would then be floated as an option ?

Maybe brought down the govt ?


I don't think the ATM's would have stopped on Monday morning.
Bank shares price might have gone down further but that would not really have mattered in the context of everything else


Interested to hear what people think on this.

Sand

InReality wrote: »

One thing that has interested me is that the "markets were going to open in a hour" narrative around the bank guaranteed decision.

Lets say that instead of approving it , the cabinet press release said they were consulting with the EU etc , and put off any decision.

What could have happened if the the rest of the cabinet had a day or so to think about it ?

Would anything have happened differently.

If the government put out any sort of press release stating they were discussing the future of the Irish banks and their viability with the EU absolute bedlam would have broken out. There are only two valid, public government positions on problems with banks: to loudly proclaim that there is no problem or to have announced that there *was* a problem but its now solved.

I go back and over in my own mind on this - I think a green minister or 2 might have resigned if they had time to think about it.

The Greens were a wholly amoral, grasping, foolish greedy little movement. They conspired to deny people the right to elect their own political representatives. It is highly unlikely they would do anything to rock the boat. Their eventual withdrawal was a desperate, sad little attempt to pretend to be appalled by what their government was up to.

Maybe examiner-ship for the banks would then be floated as an option ?

Too slow - see bedlam above.

I don't think the ATM's would have stopped on Monday morning.
Bank shares price might have gone down further but that would not really have mattered in the context of everything else

You're right, ATMs would not have stopped on Monday morning. That was just the highlight of the ridiculous misinformation the "TINA! TINA!" brigade were spreading at the time to try and force the Irish people to take on the debts of incompetent Eurozone banks.

The only real different strategy the Irish government could have pursued was to either push the banks to go and talk to the ECB/EU (the EU was furious with the Irish at the time so quite sure the ECB/EU would have been happy to deal with the issue themselves) or to have simply rushed through some bank resolution legislation in a few hours (like the promissory note deal), burnt the banks creditors, and salvaged the infrastructure (branch network, systems, frontline staff etc) and re-capitalised what was left.

Any sort of guarantee would simply have dragged in the state by stages - almost as it occurred actually.

Good loser

OP read the Donal O Donovan & Antoin Murphy book 'The Fall of the Celtic Tiger'. It explains all.

johnnyskeleton

InReality wrote: »

One thing that has interested me is that the "markets were going to open in a hour" narrative around the bank guaranteed decision.

Lets say that instead of approving it , the cabinet press release said they were consulting with the EU etc , and put off any decision.

What could have happened if the the rest of the cabinet had a day or so to think about it ?

Would anything have happened differently.

I go back and over in my own mind on this - I think a green minister or 2 might have resigned if they had time to think about it.

Maybe examiner-ship for the banks would then be floated as an option ?

Maybe brought down the govt ?


I don't think the ATM's would have stopped on Monday morning.
Bank shares price might have gone down further but that would not really have mattered in the context of everything else


Interested to hear what people think on this.

Just to be clear, it was debated over a few days and labour opposed it. Any suggestion that greens, fine gaelers or even repentant fianna failers would have voted differently if only they had more time is political revisionism. They could have voted no to force the government to give them more time.

Scortho

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

Just to be clear, it was debated over a few days and labour opposed it. Any suggestion that greens, fine gaelers or even repentant fianna failers would have voted differently if only they had more time is political revisionism. They could have voted no to force the government to give them more time.

You can add sf to that list as well