Ditto banks.

Q: How do you buy a small Irish bank in 2010?

A: Buy a big one and wait.

The old ones are the best…… or maybe not.

Reminds me of the old joke about how to make a small fortune in farming……

…………… Start with a large fortune.

What are the odds of that? Will economists help?

Down for the second month, from 5.5% to 5.3%. 70Bn coal export deal in Qld?

Ireland has to dig a few deep holes and B%gg#r the Nimby crowd!

Oh and Washington DC suffering from Global warming!!!!!

seriously man, you’re only realising this now? He has numerous aliases, but sadly all his posts have that signature rantish quality…

Al

“Earlier this month, Leo Varadkar [FG] was accused of racism by suggesting economic migrants could be paid to leave Ireland.
He said dole payments to jobless foreign nationals cost €400m each year, and that offering a lump sum to people to return home could be a “win win for everyone”.
Social and Family Affairs Minister Mary Hanafin dismissed the idea, saying: “He can only mean Africans, so the comments are racist.”

But yesterday the department confirmed officials they were examining the fund to see what money could be drawn down.

“Officials are looking at the fund to see how applications may be made,” a spokesperson said….

….Last night Mr Varadkar said he didn’t want to get embroiled in the issue again, but that Ireland needed a debate on immigation. Figures provided last week showed that hundreds of people were assisted in returning home.

Repatriation

“My understanding is that the Return Fund would not be open to non-EU nationals, but the Government has paid for voluntary repatriation of 1,400 people in the past four or five years,” he said.

“Despite the over-reaction from Conor Lenihan and Mary Hanafin, it is already being done on a small scale basis so I don’t see why it can’t be extended.

“The Government doesn’t want to talk about immigration. Anyone who says anything is accused of playing the race card. If official Ireland ignores it, it will come back to bite us.”

New figures released yesterday show that the Government has spent almost €2m in the last three years repatriating non-EU nationals.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/eu-may–foot-bill-for-migrants-who-want-to-go-home-1484960.html

1. At least a member of the establishment (duller & posher wing) was being honest.
2. He was attacked as racist by FF/PDs but then within weeks agreed with.
3. He said this in Sept 2008. I presume FG aren’t so right-wing that they would be so vocal, public and enthusiastic about non-Irish born leaving unless they felt that unemployment was going up and staying up for a long time. So at that stage it was accepted by FG that there had been a bubble and it had burst.
4. In that case, why did they vote for the blanket bank guarantee?
They clearly knew there was a property/lending bubble and that it had burst. Then they voted in favour of putting Anglo/Nationwide’s development loans on the backs of the public? Anglo, the developers bank, and Nationwide, the insiders bank?

5. Minister Lenihan told them it was the cheapest bailout in the world and that our banks were an island of stability. These deceptions made George Lee angry. FG? Not a bother. Why? They KNEW the banks were bust.
They assisted in covering it up and they have done so ever since.

Conclusions:
FG were covering up even then.
FG are as establishment and as insider as FF.
FG are as right wing or more right wing - and even more open about it - as FF/PDs.
Our establishment & our insiders will happily force out tens of thousands of people, Irish-born, New Irish, Returned Irish-born, to protect their own position.

They’ve done it many times before and if they are not drastically reformed they’ll do it many more times in the future.

Maybe you should ask Christy Moore if he is willing to supply the lyrics before you rip up the constitiution. Otherwise if might not work out.

http://www.irisheconomy.ie/index.php/2010/02/09/iceland-iceland-collapse-collapse/#comment-35484

We don’t need a Central Bank. We do not operate a currency. Keynesian economic ideology does not work; it is Socialism.

Instead of all this rot, we need a free market, sound money, less regulation and less Government. None of which is possible from within the Euro.

“The challenge is to avoid … self-inflicted harm as much as possible; unfortunately our political and governance arrangements are totally dysfunctional. And there is no effective mechanism to change these.”

Yes - the Irish banking quagmire is an Irish one and a self-inflicted one - fact that is parallels a broader one simply adds to difficulty but not a cause of the Irish one. €20 billion from the bond-holders and €20 billion from the taxpayers could sort this, and have it sorted yesterday - instead we are on slow road to oblivion from a thousand cuts and no credit …….. So we need ‘effective mechanisms’ to up-skill and re-constuct ‘dysfunctional political and governance’ arrangements.

Mechanisms, mechanisms, mechanisms ……….. my despair index is rockin ……… fe*k it . it’s really rockin ……seriously rockin….. I’m only capable of a few interim mechanistic measures at the mo:

[1] an all out bank strike by every Joe and Joan bank worker in the country - and bring the NAMA debacle and the rape of future generations to a halt. Christy Moore will supply the relevant lyrics.
[2] the Green_Party to discover a conscience and GO
[3] Willie O’Dea to declare that his time in FF was an error of judg€ment, as he grabs €1.7 billion from the Government coffers destined for the Zombies, and drives his tank triomphantly through the streets of Limerick as he makes his bid to become leader of the re-constituted Limerick Soviet. Not to be outdone, Cork will declare an independent Republic, The Rebel County Sovereignty Parade, and delink from the Euro.
[4] Tourism will rocket as international brigades from all over fly in to support the troops and to learn from the Irish experience of crisis management and evolving bartering expertise in the head-shops.
[5] The market goes black. Black Market - No Black Holes : Black Market - No Black Holes …….. becomes the new mantra.
[6] Amidst the confusion, slip a few billion to the bondholders, take over the bleed*n banks, dump the toxic residue of Shawnee, Fingers and Co, and fire every upper-echelon cowboy board in the vicinity.

The power grab is on to strip him of as much power as possible. He appointed him when he needed credibility with the public. Lenihans’ ‘trust me on NAMA sure haven’t I appointed an outsider to the CB.’ For Lenihan it was a price worth paying, at the time, but now NAMA is law and it is a different situation altogether.

From now on, it is all about about hiding the SPV/NAMA from public scrutiny. We will be told that information being sought under FOI’s is “commercially sensitive” or that it could effect treasuries, coupon rates, spreads etc or that it is not in the national interest whatever that is supposed to mean.

I like Honohan but he needs to become politically astute, otherwise he will become a figure head, he is where he is because of political expediency not qualifications. Hopefully, the ECB will come to his assistance but I have no faith in the ECB as they bottled it on NAMA/SPV.

Obviously?? he is on about his hair??

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/ecb-wants-honohan-to-have-veto-over-watchdog-2043498.html

Good night
Al

Ah, net migration… we are replacing PhDs with toilet duck…

“Why are we stuck with these leeching insiders?”

Dude, why are we stuck with you?

We had emigration before WW2.
During WW2.
In the 50s.
In the eighties.
Now in 2008 -.

When was the last time a former Irish government minister or civil servant
emigrated when he caused emigration? When was the last time he resigned for doing so? Why, when we live in a globalised world, are we stuck with the shallow, talentless pool that is official Ireland? Why are we stuck with these leeching insiders?

I left college in 1985 - the majority of my peers emigrated. I qualified as an accountant in 1988. Still the majority of my fellow professionals left.
Were you here in 1992/93 when Ireland was forced out of the ERM and interest rates went up to 18%. I was and I was working in retail (just started actually). It was no fun.

House prices fell between 1981 and 1987. The people who sold us their house saw its value drop over 10% in that period. My brother who also emigrated and bought a house in 1982 also made a loss when he sold 5 years later.

If that wasn’t a recession it didn’t feel like a booming economy.

“THE Mayor of Limerick, Cllr Kevin Kiely, has called for the deportation of EU-nationals who have failed to secure employment since their arrival here.
“I’m calling for anybody who is living in the State and who can’t afford to pay for themselves to be deported after three months. We are borrowing €400 million per week to maintain our own residents and we can’t afford it,” the outspoken politician said this Wednesday.

“During the good times it was grand but we can’t afford the current situation unless the EU is willing to step in and pay for non-nationals,” he said.

http://www.limerickleader.ie/news/Mayor-of-Limerick-34Send-home.5814604.jp

When you think about it though, all he did was say what the establishment really believe.

Land of a thousand welcomes my foot.

Where? Are they opening a new McDonalds in Co. Mayo?

You will need a Masters soon just to get a job flipping burgers.

I know several Polish people and they have been asked to their faces - and with no intention to offend - by Irish people when they were going to leave now the boom had ended. And they were working!

The prejudice of the Irish establishment is contagious.

I am afraid I have to call you and John the Optimist out on your prejudice against immigrants. It is shared by the Irish establishment but that is no excuse. 65,000 emigrated up until April 2009 - new and old Irish. When the recovery comes in Britain and America the floodgates will open - as they did in the late eighties. Worse again - and unlike the eighties - many will continue to arrive from elsewhere. The result will be a huge further rise in official prejudice. This will inevitably poison the attitudes of Irish born residents too.

prejudiced against immigrants? What on earth are you talking about? Where have i said anything of the sort? You have slandered plenty of people on here before, but im growing tired of this juvenile act. Moderators, this guy is quite clearly a whack job, and he’s gone way past the Pale on too many occasions now.

Added to this is your whacky economic claims - 65k people left these shores in the period cited above, but 57k also decided to come in. To only quote one side of that equation is beyond misleading, its deliberately misrepresenting the situation.

Even if there is net migration outward, the composition of it provides the all important context. Can you not see a qualitative difference between, for example, 25k Polish people returning home after years of hard work here, complete with some hard earned savings to start a home or a business back in Poland, vs hoardes of young Irish people being forced to leave their friends and families behind here in Ireland? The former is happening to some extent, while the latter is still only a suggested possibility over the coming years. Despite many Polish people no doubt being happy and excited at the opportunities now available to them back home due to their time in Ireland, you’re painting it out to be a modern day Book of Exodus. Its nothing of the sort and i again assert that you are completely making up opinions and claims and posting them here. Previously i thought they were just coming out of random thoughts in your head, but now its quite clear they are in fact just coming out of your a*se.

“The agency says 65,000 people left the country in the 12 months up to April this year…”

*sigh*

from the same report…”…while the number of immigrants declined to 57,000 in the same period.” So net migration of -8,000. And nothing about “young people”.

From the ESRI in April….

“April 29, 2009

The Economic and Social Reseaerch Institute is predicting unemployment reaching 15% by the end of this year before peaking at 17% next year. The organisation is estimating emigration figures will be 60,000 over the next two years. The Irish Independent notes that the organisations cautions, “It would be wrong to call that a forecast. It is more of an assumption, because migration is so hard to predict”.

So, (a) this is their net 2yr migration assumption (they’re unwilling to even call it a forecast, its just a number they are going to use for other data forecasting), (b) they predicted this based on a 15% end of year unemployment figure, and a 17% unemployment figure at end 2010, both of which are already huge overshoots from the real picture.

As i and JtO have both shown, the “60,000 young people have alreaday left” is a completely false statement. It is not backed up by any actual data or linked reference source, and you’re not even sure who said it (”i believe”) or in what context. You are, in short, making this sh1t up as you go along.

Joe Duffy is on the line - can you fit him in for an hour or so tomorrow? Sob… sniff, sniff, ….. and you have to go to work in the mawrnIN as well … ochon, ochon, ochon …………. an the 50s —- ah de 50s - them were real men alrite ……….. Take the ‘chuckler of the day’ award …….. (-;