Now that detente has broken out - and well done to both of you (+ Graham Stull) - do you know anyone who might take those nationalised Icelandic bank shares in West Ham United off the hands of the Hammers? The Board needs the cash to buy Oliver Vandt as The striker to create havoc in premiership defenses …………

Okay, I never called you stupid, blind, prejudiced against immigrant. I am sorry if I called your clients squirrels. And I disagree with those commentators who show you disrespect.

For the record, I enjoy your comments and respect your views.

I too apologise if my comments - which were designed to be on issue - appeared to impugned your integrity. The “if you were honest” was a rhetorical device.

at various stages in recent months on here i have been accused of being stupid, blind, deliberately misleading, prejudiced against immigrants, a member of the establishment lobby, of having links with political parties, of personally gaining from the LTEV-overpaying of Irish bank assets, of having clients who are “squirreling away” the gains on Irish bank securities resulting from NAMA, and now of being wrong & not being honest about the actual outcomes of my previous comments. At various stages i have asked for people to back these claims up. At no stage has anyone ever supplied anything more than their own opinion or take on things, as opposed to factual evidence. To be honest, i’ve just had enough of it, and though no personal offence was intended against you, i aint gonna put up with it.

first really obvious point: “comments of last summer” does not match with a single comment on Oct 7th. This isn’t an issue of semantics, im only pointing out that you are suddenly changing a very broad sweeping statement about my general opinions, into a single comment outside the period of reference. Its impossible for me to defend myself when you won’t reference what i have said. Indeed, your inability to source anything “last summer” would make me think you are actually making this up as you go along. Is your assertion now that “at some stage over the last year of posting on here you got something wrong”? If so, then you have found me out - i do NOT in fact have the powers of papal infalability…

That said, however, and more specifically, what exactly is incorrect with what i said on Oct 7th and you have posted above? Please identify what exactly “is not going to come to pass”.

Banking sector still a going concern - check.
Positive effects for state funding req’s - check.
Buy the state time to suffer the inevitable adjustment in wages, asset prices and government spending - check, check, and check.

I never said there wouldn’t be additional recapitalisation required (though i hoped much of it would be private sector sourced). What i differentiated from was the liquidation that many people were suggesting take place with the Irish banks, or the chaos that overnight nationalisation might bring to the financial system. I have rarely, if ever, commented on recapitalisation of the flow of credit, almost always referring to bank and sovereign funding and stability of the banking and financial systems. Indeed, i finished off the exert you have selected with the following:

“As i have previously commented, i view the LTEV as a very large subsidy to the banking sector, but one which is justifiable given the economic and funding realities of Ireland at the present time. I am also very much in favour of an increased subordinated bond element to NAMA, and am very much a proponent of a special taxation policy for the banks going forward in order to recoup any losses resulting from NAMA.”

Again, i call on you to show exactly where i have been incorrect with regard to NAMA and my comments “in terms of what you stated it would achieve” and how NAMA has been a “disasterous failure” v-a-v these comments.

I apologise if you think im being rude or snarky, but to issue a very very broad based comment about me, my imaginery “squirreling” clients, and what i am alleged to have said, without any form of reference or citation, is both unfair, insulting, and worthy of rebuke. As i said, prove all of it or retract.

Nervy, nasty response. Light again on content.

Lying tool?

Ouch. That’s uncalled for and cheapens your comment. But at least you started to say please.

Specifically, you said things like (Oct 7)

NAMA, by paying LTEV, would repay the taxpayer in the form of “a banking system that is not declared insolvent and which should be able to be operated as a going concern going forward. This has follow on positive effects for the State funding requirements. It also buys the entire state and its population more time to suffer the inevitable adjustment in wages, asset prices and government spending which we are due to encounter shortly.”

How is this coming to pass now? It’s not. Banks will require recapitalisation in order to achieve solvency. That recapitalisation will occur at NAMA inflated share prices and after creeping bond deals that let the creditors off the hook.

Listen, Eoin, I may be mistaken. But to call me a lying tool is uncalled for. You owe ME an apology.

*IRELAND `EXPECTS’ BANKS TO PAY STATE COUPON, CORRIGAN SAYS
*CORRIGAN SAYS PROVISION FOR PAYMENT IN KIND IN LIEU OF COUPON
*CORRIGAN SAYS `COUPON STOPPER’ PROBABLY WON’T BE PERMANENT
*CORRIGAN: EU MADE IT CLEAR `STOPPER’ NOT PERMANENT FOR STATE
*CORRIGAN SAYS `MUST BE PATIENT’ ON COUPON PAYMENT

Did they though? I’m told of lots of private jets with Spanish id’s going back and forth to Germany and France since Christmas. I’m also told there’s a lot of shouting, finger pointing and table thumping going on in Brussels this morning.

I wonder if this afternoons (or possibly evening) announcement might be wider than just Greece and its ouzo crisis? Only time will tell.

I also suspect that Faisal Islam on C4 is onto a big story/scoop. There’s something about his demeanour yesterday…………. gut feel.

Wouldnt it be much better to have government checks bounce followed by a few months of rioting and a few dead bankers in 2010 than generations of debt slavery for everyone, just to keep the bankers and politicial classes in clover…. F them!

sigh.

my clients? if i was honest? what i stated it would acheive last summer? Seriously Graham, you really need to get your facts in order, lest i decide to call you a lying tool.

- My clients: none of ‘em buy Irish bank equity or bonds off me. They do buy Irish govt debt, which by your logic should have gone down in value on account of NAMA, but strangely has done the opposite.

- If i was honest: please, detail exactly where im not being honest. Or apologise. Your choice chief.

- what i stated it would achieve:

not entirely sure what you are accusing me of stating, so please be slightly more specific. I have vaguely referred to getting credit flowing again, but beyond that my major opinions have been around NAMA stabilising the banking sector and the state as a whole. I think i’ve been on the money on that. I’ve even openly admitted that NAMA will ultimately likely cost the state money. When i looked back over my comments over the summer, here’s the only notable ones i found:

“There is a far bigger chance of a loss at the end of NAMA, and a very real chance that that loss will be a huge one.
As such, the real question is whether the boost to the economy from clearing the banks’ balance sheets and restoring the flow of credit will outweigh the nominal loss that may eventually come from NAMA. For many, this question has yet to be convincingly answered by the government.”

“i would think its reasonable to assume that 3 or 4 of the nations largest banks going bust would have had some material effect on lending into the economy, but of course some people like to ignore this sort of thing…”

“I’m not saying we should be in any way happy about NAMA now being the ‘last, best hope’, or that there isn’t going to be a grizzly tab left for the taxpayer at the end of it all, but i really do shudder to think what’ll happen if it doesnt go through. Sometimes we have to accept the realities of the situation we are in.”

As i said above Graham, please list exactly what it is your are suggesting that i have stated or lied about, please show me where i have been wrong, and please detail exactly how NAMA has been a disasterous failure in light of my comments made last summer. Seriously Graham, given that you accused me of being vague yesterday, could you provide a bit of detail yourself please?

I seem to be really upsetting you guys.

Let me remind you that the system that has failed is the one you have managed for the last sixty years.

Ayn Rand’s Objectivism at least acknowledges the role of Capitalism in the engendering of freedom.

Keynesians seek to regulate, to determine prices and wages and to achieve the fallacious notion of “equilibrium” within the economy. All Socialist claptrap leading us to hell in a handcart.

I am an Austrian, not a Randian. Her ideas on the economy were limited to extolling the virtues of “Laissez faire” She sought above all else to repudiate the Marxians.

While not one of her followers I commend her desire to free society from the moral degradation of Socialism. The connection between a failed ideology and a failed society has not clicked with you yet, it appears.

The qualitative difference is that instead of having a clear and efficient response to the banking crisis, we have opaque confusion that reeks of crony capitalism. Meanwhile, the important markets (credit to SMEs and the property market) remain frozen in time, unable to see through the smokescreen created by the bumbling politicians.

If you were honest and read over your own Eoin Bond comments of last summer, you would admit NAMA has been a disasterous failure so far - in terms of what you stated it would achieve. We are nowhere and it is already Feb 2010.

““We didn’t go off, again like Iceland, and nationalise the system OVERNIGHT” What he is saying is that he will do it.”

I have long argued there is a huge qualitiative AND quantitative differnece between overnight nationalisation at the peak of the crisis and creeping nationalisation after a period of stability and consolidation. This point gets lost on some people.

Fe*k off with your failed and dangerous ideology. It is a prime cause of the present global mess. Shrug it Off - AynRand addiction rehabilitation support groups on the dirt tracks around Merrion Square every hour on the hour ……. walk counterclockwise …. yes we know it is difficult to change the indoctrinated habits of a lifetime but we do have a duty of care and there are no fools as dangerous right now as fools such as you.

U Mock to much.

The days of the banking cabal are over. This blow-out has destroyed them. It is their own fault. Bankers caused this debacle. You speculate on how to to preserve these parasitic institutions. I speculate on how they might eventually be destroyed.

It is not a given that we need a banking system based on fractional reserve lending in order to function as a successful economy. It is not a given that society needs to be Socialist either.

The Economies of the Western World have crashed. The banks are to blame.

Those who lived under Socialist regimes know about the terrors and privations that prevailed there.

I respectfully suggest that a major re-alignment of our economy and society is both necessary and inevitable following these changes. Savings the banks is the last thing we should be doing.

Given the latest comments from the Germans, my speculation on the likely spark that sets fire to the Euro may be somewhat speculative. There is still however, no good reason to believe that the currency will not alter dramatically in the next few months. There is simply too much debt dragging it down.

Sorry, I was a bit slow there.

“We know the Greeks are clueless on this issue.”

Thank God I’m not Greek.

“allow free people to recover their wealth and prospects by their own initiative”

Nice.

Tell me Mock, were do you get this shit from?

“the cats out of the bag and the Germans are talking about a bailout though…”

Your faith in “the Germans” “bailing out” Greece is admirable.

Your understanding of German parish pump politics leaves me a breathless ignorant.

The Greeks Socialists have just done one of two things; either they have consigned their nation to peonage for the foreseeable future or they have achieved by a miracle of perspicacity the start of the process by which the ECB is demolished and the people of Europe eventually emerge into a state of economic freedom.

We know the Greeks are clueless on this issue. However, it is possible that the latter possibility may apply and they have inadvertently started the ball rolling.

It is also true that we were just as blind as the Greeks. Granted, we have attempted to bring some semblance of fiscal order to the economy; whereas the Greeks did little or nothing. However, the inescapable fact remains that we owe too much and will not be able to pay our debts.

We, like the Greeks, have developed a Socialist State founded on the nonsensical tenets laid out by Keynes (the Great Seducer). We are on the same path as them and just as ideologically hamstrung. Peonage beckons!

We must change our path and force the banks into liquidation. These banks must be let go. NAMA is the worst example of mal-investment by the State along the lines recommended by the Keynesian ideology.

The Free Market will immediately re-balance our economy once we take the shackles off. The key point is to de-regulate the economy and to tear up the Statute book. The Government must shrink away to a shadow of its former self and allow free people to recover their wealth and prospects by their own initiative. This does not mean anarchy as the Criminal Code still applies. The shrunken State can concentrate on protecting its citizenry with those taxes it collects. The most important steps involve establishing a sound money and an end to Socialist planning.

Socialism does not work. It enslaves people. We allowed ourselves get suckered by the Left (Keynesians) into believing this dead-end ideology and now we are reaping the whirlwind.

The Euro experiment is dead. The Germans have already stumped up E400billion on convergence and now need a mountain of cash too bail out the Greeks. If they attempt to sustain the Euro beyond its sell by date they risk destroying their own economy. The likelihood is they will keep at it until a neo fascist party gets control of one of the Landes parliaments. Then it will be all over. Ireland, like the rest of the PIIGS will be dumped out of the Euro leaving us to fend for ourselves.

Better we take the bull by the horns now and put everything we have into establishing a free market economy with our own honest currency.

“sorry about the Greece thing”

I’ll bet you €3,500,000,000 Preference Shares in AIB against Eoin’s valuation of his bonus next year that the Derivative Death Star just powered up.

Eoin,

Look. It’s very simple, and, fair enough you have been studiously avoiding any reference to the value of the Preference Shares in which the National Pension Reserve Fund invested €7,000,000,000.

So, as a banker.

What is your current valuation of the €7,000,000,000?

If I were offered the Preference Shares in AIB and BofI tomorrow, for cash (and knowing that the Warrants are valueless) how much “in cash” should I give?

Long Term Economic Value aside.

oh goodie, fun times to be had in the markets in the morning…still think the cats out of the bag and the Germans are talking about a bailout though…

“Government spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm rejects as unfounded reports citing coalition sources saying a decision for aid for Greece has in effect been made,” a government official quoted him as saying. Reuters had earlier reported a senior German ruling coalition source as saying euro zone countries had decided in principle to help Greece.”

Course they will. And they will probably trot out the old ‘market forces’ mantra without as much as a twitch of an eyebrow ……… market forces are, apparently, only for the little people.

I forget how long ago it was I predicted that the banks would start shedding jobs in 2010. Especially those that will soon be dumping their rubbish into NAMA and no longer beholden. The HBOS is just a small sideshow.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0209/breaking65.htm

“he Brians as either clueless about what actually happened in Iceland or else willing to mislead the Irish public on a key issue in order to score a political point, there is a substantive point worth emphasising here.”

I would say the wilful misleading (I could be a lot stronger) is done for stronger reasons than to score a political point. It has been used over and over again by the Minister for Propaganda, Brian Lenihan, to bully the country into submission to accept the guarantee, NAMA and much much more.

The free pass given to Lenihan by the press is so glaring, galling and pathetic. It is bias plain and simple. Notice how the IT reported the IMF NAMA story months after it was reported here.