Loading tweets...The bank guarantee represented the most spectacular single transfer of wealth ever in the history of this country, from society at large to a financial elite. The elite being depositors of more than €100,000 (depositors up to €100,000 had been guaranteed previously) and bondholders who had lent money to the banks. Even if the banks had not collapsed subsequently, it was still a huge transfer of wealth because of the insurance it gave the big depositors and bondholders.
Category Archive: Banking
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Permanent link to this article: http://www.eamonnblaney.com/wordpress/blog/2010/12/06/tds-had-better-think-before-voting/
Nov 26
Irelands Economic Crisis Explained, By Robots !
The Irish story began with a genuine economic miracle. But eventually this gave way to a speculative frenzy driven by runaway banks and real estate developers, all in a cosy relationship with leading politicians. The frenzy was financed with huge borrowing on the part of Irish banks, largely from banks in other European nations.
Then the bubble burst, and those banks faced huge losses. You might have expected those who lent money to the banks to share in the losses. After all, they were consenting adults, and if they failed to understand the risks they were taking that was nobody’s fault but their own. But, no, the Irish government stepped in to guarantee the banks’ debt, turning private losses into public obligations.
Permanent link to this article: http://www.eamonnblaney.com/wordpress/blog/2010/11/26/irelands-economic-crisis-explained-by-robots/
Sep 10
What Are The Alternatives To This Economic Disaster? (Sunday Indo 12 Sept 2010)
To be published in the Sunday Independent 12 Sept 2010
On numerous occasions in the last week we have heard our Minister for finance Mr. Lenihan remind us of the necessity to continue to guarantee the banks. Not to have done so initially would almost certainly have meant the instant financial collapse for our state. Of the two options open to him (letting the banks go, being the first), guaranteeing the Irish banks was the only practical option. Well, according to those who were advising himself and Mr. Cowen on that fateful night, when the crises meeting took place in Government Buildings.
Let’s face it, this is what he was told by the CEO’s and the Chairmen of Allied Irish Banks and Bank of Ireland. And these people should know shouldn’t they? These were the same people who, we had been led to believe, understood international finance, economics and the creation of wealth. After all, the bankers were finance professionals and Mr. Lenihan and Mr. Cowen, were legal professionals. You wouldn’t go to a solicitor for financial advice nor vice versa, would you? Our representatives at the meeting (Zig & Zag) were either lied to or they were incompetent, or both. Fortunately for everyone in the room that night, we’ll never know as there were no minutes taken at the meeting. Yeah, right.
We can only surmise that the bankers put up an extremely strong case for the guaranteeing of the banks and strangely Anglo Irish bank, which they knew was in serious trouble. The problem is, Mr. Lenihan has ever told us what, specifically, the alternatives were. Sure, we have heard the warnings of “economic meltdown” and “imminent collapse of the financial system” etc etc. But so far, nobody has actually told us what these mean. What advice specifically did Mr. Lenihan and Mr. Cowen receive from the bankers? What “appalling vista” lay before them that left them with no choice but to guarantee the Irish banks and therefore a generation to economic hardship? I, for one, would really like to know the answer. I mean, how bad would the alternative have been? ./…………
Permanent link to this article: http://www.eamonnblaney.com/wordpress/blog/2010/09/10/what-are-the-alternatives-to-this-economic-disaster-sunday-indo-12-sept-2010/
Sep 05
Default and be damned – Sunday Indo, Sept 5th ’10
The banks effectively want it every way, full security against all monies that have been borrowed from them in the form of a personal guarantee from each mortgage holder and failing that, a state guarantee, notwithstanding the fact that they already hold the deeds of your property. But hold on, it gets worse. As a direct result of their utter incompetence, the banks lost all their capital reserves, then the equity (share value) thereby threatening all the depositors money which should then place all the bond holders at risk of loses as well. Yet they expect that these losses should be paid back in full by you the mortgage holder, tax payer or citizen or else we “risk damage to our international reputation”. The bondholders knew the risks (that’s their job) and individual investors and depositors should have too.
Permanent link to this article: http://www.eamonnblaney.com/wordpress/blog/2010/09/05/default-and-be-damned-sunday-indo-sept-5th-10/
Dec 06
TD’s had better think before voting.
December 6, 2010
As we get closer to the financial and social endgame resulting from Fianna Fail and the Greens governance are country, their incompetence and lies are laid bare for all to see. Those of us who were advised to go and commit suicide by the then leader Mr. Bertie Ahern and didn’t, can see their very worst nightmares coming to fruition. We knew it was going to be bad but we could never have conceived just how bad it has become. And this is really just the start.
In a speech in 2007 Mr. Ahern promised that in a fall would reduce the gap between what we spent and what we took in taxes than revenues. He lied. Mr. Cowen, who was then the finance minister, simply went along with what ever he was advised to do by those total incompetents in the Department of Finance. The big accountancy and legal firms operating in Dublin who oversaw audits of the major banks and financial institutions, and charged millions for it, reported that everything was okay, these companies also lied. Full article on www.EamonnBlaney.com
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