The Economist provides a useful summary of the pros and cons of taking on the holders of senior bank debt: you can read it here.
The new issue also has articles on contagion and the funding of Irish banks.
On Morning Ireland a few hours ago, Amadeu Altfaj Tardio, Spokesman for the European Commissioner Olli Rehn, was asked by RTE’s Rachael English (about 5.08 minutes in) whether the EU would countenance senior bond holders sharing the burden as part of the Irish bailout.
Possibly Amadeu didn’t quite understand the question (though he was asked it twice in pretty clear terms.) Anyway, my understanding of his response was that he could countenance this type of burden sharing. He said the issue “was under discussion” though it seems as though he meant this in the sense of a general Euro-area policy in this area was being discussed, rather than that he knew that this issue was being discussed in the current Irish bailout negotiations.
Further clarifications on this issue should probably be sought.
The four-year plan assumes that Irish GDP will grow in real terms by around 2.75% per annum over the next four years. For good measure, it throws in a little bit of assumed inflation as well (0.75%, 1%, 1.25%, 1.5% — a suspiciously smooth progression, would you not say?).
In the context of the proposed austerity package, this seems wildly over-optimistic to me, and it would appear that several market analysts hold the same view. Here’s one quote from the foreign press, but you can easily find more of the same:
Analysts questioned whether the plan was credible. Stephen Lewis, chief economist at Monument Securities, said: “It doesn’t seem all that realistic to me. It seems they’re planning very stringent fiscal measures and yet they expect the economy to grow against that background. That seems highly unlikely.”
Needless to say, I would love to be proved wrong, and the third quarter GDP statistics will be revealing one way or the other.
Optimists point to the growth in Irish exports as the route to our recovery. Since we can’t devalue, we will be relying on foreign income growth more than on relative price shifts to achieve this happy outcome. So it seems worth pointing out that the Dutch CPB’s September data on world trade and industrial production were released yesterday. They confirm a trend which has been there since January: the momentum of the world recovery is steadily decreasing.
I have a letter in the FT today responding to Martin Wolf’s article yesterday: you can read it here.
I give my view in this article in today’s Irish Times.