http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/1013/1224256508947.html

Instead of taking your word let’s look at what Morgan Kelly himself wrote:

“A less futile exercise is to ask how much Nama would have cost at the end of similar credit-fuelled price bubbles. A decade after their peaks, Tokyo land prices had fallen by five-sixths, while Irish farmland, adjusted for inflation, had fallen by three-quarters. Had Brian Lenihan bought €77 billion of either, applying the proposed Nama discount of 30 per cent, he would have lost €35 billion-€40 billion on our behalf, or roughly €20,000 per taxpayer, and that is before adding interest…
Once the ECB slams the window on its fingers, the Government will be forced to borrow at market rates of 5 per cent or more. In the next decade, this will add another €25 billion or so to taxpayers’ losses from Nama.”

€35Bn plus €25 Bn is €60Bn - using Japan and using Irish farmland in the seventies, which seems a pretty good comparison.
Add the €5Bn wasted on finishing projects in a hugely oversupplied market and you get….€65 Bn.

“we don’t want to drive her away”

And whats this “we” business? You’re creating this situation all by yourself. No need to offer adivse to the rest of us.

its a fairly basic question: does Kelly, anywhere, say that NAMA will lose 65bn? Do any of HIS calculations by themselves add up to 65bn? At least have the balls to ‘fess up when you’re peddling tosh. Kelly doesn’t even say that NAMA ‘will’ lose 35-40bn, he simply says that if the Japanese situation were to occur here, than thats how much it would lose.

““Your newspaper’s stance on NAMA, which will lose us €65 Billion per Morgan Kelly””

Btw, that is a complete lie, and you know it. Morgan Kelly said no such thing. You’re adding up what he said and what some other people said, and putting the sum of those opinions down as his one opinion. This is all the more hilarious as some time back in the day you suggested that there would have to be a “discount” on my opinions (fairly sure that was the exact line) on this site. In reality you’re actually the one spouting sh1te.

“Your newspaper’s stance on NAMA, which will lose us €65 Billion per Morgan Kelly”

You do realise the crass stupidy of critisising a newspaper that is actually the public outlet for, eh, Morgan Kelly, right? Please tell me you do? There’s a lot of additional stupidity in your diatribe against Ms Carey, but lets at least start with the biggest part. If it wasn’t for the IT there are an awful lot less people who would know about the opinions of either Morgan Kelly or the “46″.

Does she own the newspaper?
If I was an Anglo employee posting here would I be expected or able to represent it?

Al

The Irish Times in their news, opinion and editorial sections have been really dreadful on this. The business journalists and columnists have been good. I know that you and Fintan O’Toole have opposed NAMA as is. But overall the paper has utterly failed to lead the campaign against corruption, has colluded with the government in it’s campaign to divert public anger onto the public sector and has supported the continuing bailout of the developers and bank investors.

Your editorial says it all, “A time to grin and bear it”. The public will do that, but they expect our newspapers to never let the people who caused this mess forget it - including Brian Lenihan. I know that you are not part of our establishment but blaming the public for who it elects does not excuse our elite.

“However once you retire its a done deal“

If you have a private pension or a pension provided by a private sector employer there is no such thing as a done deal. If the fund becomes insolvent you either get a reduced pension or nothing.

It’s only a “done deal” if you die before the pension fund goes bust (as many will).

Public Service pension liabilities are unfunded. They the biggest lie that western governments have peddled for the last 50 years.

The 7% that is being “confiscated” from PS workers is not even being invested in a fund. It’s being used to pay for current pension liabilities.

Boy are public servants going to be pissed off in 20 years when they find out that the State is a busted flush. According to Eoin the current level of unfunded pension liabilities is €105bn. As the government intends using the pension levy to fund current liabilities the unfunded liability can only grow.

So its the fault of the Irish Times that 10 years of Fianna Fail government delivered the greatest shock to the electorate - that they’d let the developers on the lifeboats first? And after that the PS pensioners earning more now than they did when they were working?

When the fools were lining up to vote for back bench fodder for Ahern and Cowen WHAT DID THEY THINK WAS GOING TO HAPPEN?

I swear, ending secret ballot is the first item on my list…….

I have just spent $ 80,000 AU on a visa for my parents . My 74 year old retied Garda Dad is frightened that FF will get their hands on his modest savings so that they can give it to Anglo . I will also spend many thousands more on his medical expenses as he is going blind . As guess what ? He is on a waiting list in Ireland .

I think rather than wondering why they did not cut PS pensioners the people of Ireland would be better off thinking about why they think a bunch of school teachers can run an economy .

I am kind of surprised that somebody like you would fall for the public / private misdirection .

In 2007, two former Dublin City Mangers got 36% hikes in their big pensions because the pay of the incumbent was raised.

Now that the incumbent has to give back part of the increase, his predecessors are allowed keep the manna from heaven; ditto for many others.

The majority of private sector workers have no occupational pension - - and for the ones who do, they are increasingly linked to the vagaries of the stockmarket.

Managed funds returns to Nov for 10 years, had an average annual return of 0.5% - - inflation was in the range 4 to 5% in much of the period.

Your newspaper’s stance on NAMA, which will lose us €65 Billion per Morgan Kelly: First you cheerlead for it then you appoint the second most vocal pro-NAMA partisan to be your budget commentator. That says it all.

But if The Irish Times has been bad RTE has been much, much worse.
All the other media have not done badly, given that they are owned by oligarchs. They have not campaigned against NAMA - but they have extensively covered its drawbacks and many of their journalists have opposed it.

The most utter media failures regarding the bank/developer collapse and the gigantic bailout for them and the bank investors that is NAMA have been RTE and The Irish Times. You should have lead the campaign against it. Instead you have supported it. The hypocrisy of your stance on public sector workers is on a smaller scale but similarly offensive.

http://www.politics.ie/media/119870-irish-times-pss-fair-weather-friend.html

The biggest mistake during the last 10 years to 2008 was that 75,000 more became employed in the Civil/Public Sector because of that ditherer Ahern who espoused Social Partnership which excluded indigenous businesses from the process and handed the reins of Power and our Taxes to the Public Service Unions.

For a long time student of the Property market I am really worried about the “BIB” trouble that you mention!!!!!!!!

Peter McLoone issued a statement on Wednesday which ended:

“All existing and former public servants must now mobilise to protect their incomes.”

There wasn’t a word about the unemployed.

Also on Wednesday, the head of General Electric, one of America’s greatest companies, spoke of the unemployed; the “meanness and greed” of his generation of business leaders and ,“ethically, leaders do share a common responsibility to narrow the gap between the weak and the strong. I have taken on the challenge to increase manufacturing jobs in the United States. These are the jobs that have created the midwestern middle class for generations. Manufacturing jobs paid for college educations, including mine. They have been cut in half over the past two decades.”

GE chief attacks "meanness and greed’; Richest made most mistakes with least accountability; Bottom 25% of Americans poorer than 25 years ago

Irish trade unions give the impression that their exclusive focus is on defending privilege.

Just consider the challenge for the unemployed; in the decade to 2008, less than 4,000 jobs were added in the international tradable goods and services sector; Is 100,000 many new jobs to create? - - just about the number employed by all US firms in the country.

Spare us. Your own reps turned around last week and said that with a bit of tweaking (aka “reforms”) every public sector worker could take 12 days off per year and no one would even notice.

Bankers aren’t the only ones with ethical issues in this country. The unions are managing to make Fianna Fail look good. That’s how bad it is now…

Public service unions should issue a public declaration that they will stand fully behind public servants - past and present - who expose corruption, and will strike if attempts are made to discipline them. They should also insist that whistle-blowing is treated as a gigantic positive for their promotion prospects - as indeed it would be in an honest republic.

Lenihan has villified you for months. You should hit him back where it really hurts - especially on NAMA. Otherwise you’re just accessories to a corrupt elite.

There are offices full of town planners who have nothing to do, for them a wage cut is a benediction - their job shouldn’t exist any longer, then there are hospitals with staff working hard through the night, for them the wage cut totally disregards their continuous efforts, the real issue shouldn’t be pay, it should be reform, we simply have far to many people on the state payroll, keeping the levels of remuneration but creating a system that rewards performance over longevity and such is the answer.

Here is my old debating partner Jim Power in today’s Indo:

“What we need to do is to engineer a real depreciation in the value of the Irish euro. This can only be achieved by reducing the cost base of the economy and becoming more competitive vis-a-vis our international competitors.

“This has to include lower wages at all levels in both the public and private sector; lower state charges in areas such as local authority charges and commercial rates; lower professional fees, including accounting, legal and medical costs; lower energy bills, lower consumer prices, and lower IT costs. Some of this can be achieved by public- and private-sector initiatives, and it is not just about costs. We need to improve our IT infrastructure and capability, education and training structures, and public- sector efficiency.

“While trade-union leaders might argue that such a policy prescription represents a race to the bottom, the reality is that there is no choice if Ireland is to re-establish its export base.”
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/jim-power-its-time-for-us-all-to-stop-bickering-and-start-building-for-the-future-1969467.html

In case you are wondering, it is the same Jim Power who predicted in Feb 07 that:
“The Irish housing market is still vibrant. There is still nothing in the overall data to suggest that the market is starting to experience a hard landing, and indeed the gradual slowdown that is occurring in the overall market is to be welcomed and does suggest a stronger degree of sustainability in the longer-term.

“In 2007, house completions are likely to ease back towards 85,000 units, while national average house prices are likely to increase by around 5%, less than half the rate of house price inflation seen in 2006.

“The death of the Irish housing market is grossly exaggerated”
http://www.friendsfirst.ie/artman/uploa … feb_07.pdf

I know it is a cheap shot, just some light relief for the day that’s in it.

*for more on lucky duckies; see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_duckies (context)
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110002937 (original)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LuckyDuckyComic.png (cartoon)

When you combine the earlier PS pension levy with yesterdays cuts I’m not sure if fairness strikes the right balance. The pension levy was notoriously bungled with the belated recognition that though the headline percentage grew for higher PS earners it wasn’t enough to offset their higher marginal tax wedges so the effective cuts - on take home - were pretty much the same for someone on 30k as on 70k. (in the region of 4-5% I think)

Look at yesterdays cut: someone - like Tommy Tighe on this page - who earns less than 25k will suffer a 5% gross cut. The earner on 70k will suffer 6.4%. In my opinion this level of ‘progressivity’ is too shallow.

I understand why the government had to reach down to below 40k or even 30k earners: their share of the PS workforce is too great to not make some cuts at these levels. But it seems to me like the take-home cut is not progressive enough. In my opinion.

Given the tax wedge you could well now have an earner on 30k taking a bigger - or at the very least equal - cut in take-home as the 70k earner when both levy and yesterday’s cut are taken into account (please correct if I’m way off on that.). If that is the case then for me there is certainly an issue of fairness.