No Unanimity among Employees of Financial Institutions Shock !

See page 94 for more

There’s a phrase I haven’t heard in a while.

Care to elaborate?

Most people usually say: “they should be put to work picking up rubbish and things,” but this is usually because most people have little imagination. I would hazard a guess that the 200k or so put out of work in the not too distant past are probably a bit more capable than that.

Of course, you may have Hemingway’s ‘To Have And To Have Not In Mind’. I believe that illustrates what ‘work for welfare’ is like in reality.
Worked like dogs and still starved while a rich and powerful elite led a wonderful life.

If ‘work for welfare’ is what passes for leading edge economic thinking these days then I pity us.

No more debt! It was a sweet poison before the crack up. It is now a bitter one!

There will be no credit soon, but we should aim to increase taxes now rather than later. Why are people so keen to avoid the lessons of history? We know what happens in a depression.

Work for welfare is now an imperative. We have neglected our resources for lomg enough. The belief that a quick buck from developing land would make us all wealthy was false. Apparently we now have land enough for 1,000,000 houses and need at 50,000 pa means we have enough for 20 years.
What other way do we have of being able to afford everyone a decent life? Contraction all around the world. Bamboo: was it ever considered as a crop? The rain is a natural resource that can be harvested.

The penny has not dropped. Deflation will take care of competitiveness. How do we feed clothe and keep warm and dry those who are unable to do so themselves? The happiness quotient cannot be meglected.

@John
I am sure I read somewhere recently that the EU commission itself is now projecting a 13% (from memory) deficit for us in 2009.
No one, not even the Minister, will stand over his 10.75% April estimate now.

@ Karl
It is a private opinion piece. In terms of valuation, Irish government bonds are trading cheaper than where a range of fundamentals would suggest. If you think the global economy, equities and of course NAMA, will do well through 2010, they are a steal.

@ John
You’re right in that comparing government borrowing requirements in terms of the amount borrowed per person has its limitations, like all statistics. Nonsensical not quite. It is meant to be eye catching for a general public.
Borrowing as a % of GDP is a good one, as you suggest.
Debt as a % of GDP is often cited, but increasingly problematic, given that it is offset by assets of more or less reputable quality. This is about to explode for Ireland if NAMA passes.
You will find that rating agencies, the IMF, etc inevitably look at a broad set of measures.
The European Commission saw the Irish public deficit for 2010 (back in May) at 15.5% on an unchanged policy basis. Probably higher now.
The US and UK, while also in double digits, have fewer contingent liabilities, a lower debt rollover ratio, and especially their own currency.
15.5%, even 10%, is pushing the limits of what is possible within the eurozone. NAMA is also unique within the eurozone, I’d say, and also exploring the outer reaches of our galaxy.

The Government has never made any such claim.

NAMA is about removing uncertainty from the value of assets on the balance sheets of banks, in order that they can have greater confidence when lending money into the economy.

“ESB prices . . . much more expensive because it is transferring money to the highest paid public workers in Europe”

Are you sure you don’t want to have another look at the cause of high electricity prices?

One thing that could be included in the legislation is a stay on the excecution of all decisions of the Minister of Finance once an election is called.
That the stay be lifted when the subsequent MOF approves or previous decisions.
It would take away the twilight decision making that has become so famous

Al

cheap shot but FF have had snouts, tails and trotters in trough for years so the fact that they are proxiamte to trough is of no surprise.

Why does it conflict so heavily with the head of ING who basically said NAMA had to go ahead or it would dent confidence? (was in one of the sunday papers)

(1) GDP per person employed in the economy is far higher in some countries than in others - would X thousand borrowed per person employed have the same significance in (a) California (b) Bulgaria (c) Zambia?

(2) X thousand borrowed in 2009 is not the same as X thousand borrowed in 1959 - global prices have quadrupled since then.

The only meaningful statistic is government borrowing as a percentage of GDP. The bottom line is that in 2009 government borrowing as a percentage of GDP in Ireland is roughly the same as in the U. Kingdom and the U. States. Actually, if Lenihan’s forecast for 2009 proves accurate (and who am I to know whether it will or not), it will be slightly lower in Ireland in 2009 than in the U. Kingdom and the U. States. The latest projection for the U. Kingdom deficit is 12.0%. Last week, Obama forecast a deficit of 11.2% of GDP for the U. States. Lenihan’s forecast for Ireland is 10.75%. All of them may or may not prove slightly over-optimistic.

In most continental EU countries, the projections are somewhat lower - around 6% to 7%. But, in nearly all of them the starting point for accumulated government debt at the start of the recession was far higher, typically 60% to over 100% of GDP (in Belgium, Italy and Greece), compared with 30% to 40% in Ireland, the U. Kingdom and U. States. Current projections are that government debt as a percentage of GDP in Ireland will peak at around 80% in 2013, about the same as in the U. Kingdom and U. States. Its allready above this in most continental EU countries and, despite the lower rate at which they are adding to government debt, projected to be above 100% by 2013. And, I haven’t mentioned Japan, where government debt as a percentage of GDP is soon to hit 200%.