Six months ago on this blog I made a quasi-prediction that the number of new residential mortgages in Ireland might shrink to zero-plus-noise. Arguably this has now happened. I claim no great insight and concede that it might have been dumb luck. My quasi-prediction was based on some informal liquidity-risk analysis of the Irish banks. The banks are in a corner solution with respect to long-term illiquid assets. There is little good reason for an Irish-domiciled bank to issue a new residential mortgage, rather, they might be keen to sell any of their existing long-term illiquid assets at a loss. This has only second-order policy importance relative to Greece, etc., but is worth documenting.
Year: 2012
Andy Borowitz proposes a solution for Greece here.
My opinion piece in today’s Irish Times points out that the disbanding of the Better Regulation Unit in the Department of the Taoiseach risks reducing the capacity for effective oversight of regulatory institutions and strategies and for learning about and acting on regulatory successes and failures elsewhere in the OECD member states. A fuller policy brief on the topic, “W(h)ither Better Regulation?” is available here.
I hope there is no problem about my linking to the article I wrote.
This really is one for the textbooks.
His analysis piece is here.