The IMF has a new Staff Position Note on the role of government intervention in improving the efficiency of household debt restructuring: you can read it here.
Thanks to Philip for posting about the video of the the InterTradeIreland event. I was interested in the video footage because Ciaran O’Hagan had, justifiably, raised a question about my post last week about the Minister for Finance’s reported comments at this event. The Irish Times article I pointed to had partially summarised the Minister’s statement and Ciaran questioned whether we could really be sure that they had gotten it right.
Well, having looked at the video, I can say that the Times story accurately reflected what the Minister said. In addition, the Minister’s comments on the banking situation were actually far more interesting than reported by the Times, so I took them down and have repeated them below (on the video these comments start at about 8.50 in).
I’ve been looking into the AIB debt buyback program, details of which were announced on Monday (Irish Times story here.) Why in God’s name would I be doing that during a rare sunny week in this country? Well, between the state guarantee and NAMA, pretty much everything the banks do these days has implications for the taxpayer, so it’s worth taking a look at. That and the fact that I’m a nerd. Wonky corporate financey post below the fold.
The transcript of the conference call with Ashoka Mody is here.