Garret Fitzgerald: Silly Markets and “Celebrity Economists”

In today’s Irish Times, Garret Fitzgerald dons the green jersey and bravely confronts Public Enemy Number One: Celebrity economists who “talk down the economy” and “scare the horses”.

The conservatism of the assumptions that underpin this study certainly ought to command the respect of the markets. It remains to be seen, however, to what extent it actually does so.

Factors that could work against this include last year’s undermining of confidence in our banking system; the lack of any specialised knowledge of the Irish economy both on the part of those who rate our debt and those who buy sovereign bonds; and the damage done to our financial reputation by some of our more vocal domestic commentators.

Part of our problem has been, and regrettably still is, the fact that “the markets”, (ie the international firms which evaluate credit risks as well as those which buy bonds issued by sovereign states), lack the capacity to assess adequately the financial situation of smaller states like Ireland. It is only in relation to larger sovereign borrowers that these firms employ specialists with detailed knowledge of the economy of a particular state.

For smaller states like Ireland they depend on second-hand information. This includes often ill-informed media reports, which in our case have involved reports of some of the “celebrity economists” who have been seeking publicity by claiming that our problems are so great that we will eventually have to default.

Some have indeed proposed that we should take that course now despite the impact this could have on our only current source of future borrowing – the EU-IMF bailout.

The damage to our standing abroad by such irresponsible statements has been incalculable. It is difficult enough for our own people to distinguish between serious economic commentators in Ireland and irresponsible voices – it is impossible for foreign observers of our finances to do so.

Frankly, I have no idea why Dr. Fitzgerald thinks that “the markets” lack capacity to assess the Irish financial situation. This has not been my experience over the years when dealing with ratings agencies or financial market investors: I have come across many international market investors who have a detailed knowledge of the Irish economy and financial situation.

And indeed, it’s not too hard to figure out why this is. Ireland’s gross government debt is over 100% of GDP, so the stock of outstanding debt is now over €150 billion. At current exchange rates, this means that the stock of outstanding debt is now larger than the market capitalisation of Microsoft or IBM. Does Dr. Fitzgerald think that financial markets consider these companies too small to bother collecting information on?

Over the last few years, Irish economic policy has been based on systematically overly-optimistic premises and Dr. Fitzgerald has supported these premises throughout. That Ireland’s debt situation is now extremely serious is simply undeniable. Attacking those who believe Ireland will default as trouble-making publicity seekers is pretty risible.

The ECB Have All the Means to Prevail?

The key dynamic of the current Irish economic situation is that Irish governments keep adopting positions in relation to banking and fiscal matters but then abandon these positions because “the ECB won’t agree.”  We are told that we have little choice but go along with the ECB because the Irish banks are borrowing so much money from them and, apparently, they keep threatening to pull the plug on the Irish banking system if we don’t do what they want.

This position is neatly encapsulated in this statement yesterday by Catherine Day, secretary-general of the European Commission:

However, she held out little hope of bondholders sharing the burden of Ireland’s debt. “This is primarily for the ECB to decide. They are providing the liquidity to keep Irish banks going and they have all the means to prevail with their arguments.”

Ok then, let’s envisage a scenario where the Irish government does something that the ECB doesn’t want and then the ECB decides to pull funding from the Irish banks.

At this point, the Irish banks would not be able to come up with the money to pay back the ECB. The ECB could claim the collateral that has been pledged for these loans but would have great fun trying to flog over €100 billion of dodgy eligible collateral, including wonderful stuff like NAMA bonds and own-use bonds. It would be hard to figure out how much the ECB would receive for this stuff but I’d bet they’d make pretty serious losses.

Meanwhile the Irish banks would be bust, with all their good assets gone and deposits flying out the window. The Greek and Portuguese banking systems would also be well on the way to meltdown too, as people tried to figure out when the ECB was willing to support peripheral banking systems and when it would not. Sovereign debt markets would most likely go berserk.

What part of this scenario would the ECB really be willing to put up with? If you don’t think they’d be happy with it, then perhaps they don’t really have “all the means to prevail” and perhaps our governments should stop being so scared.

At a minimum, I think Enda Kenny should come out and be clear about exactly what it is that the ECB is threatening and why he is so scared of it. Such a move might have positive effect of getting the ECB to explain whether it is indeed the case that they keep threatening to destroy the Irish banking system and, if so, why.

U-Turn on Bondholders?

Today’s newspapers contain stories that the government are denying any U-turn in relation to previous commitments on bondholders.

“We have not broken our word,” Mr Noonan said, arguing that all election promises were predicated on agreement being reached at European level.

He said that since the banking crises had emerged Fine Gael had been in favour of burden-sharing and said that it has already happened with subordinated debt.

“We want burden-sharing but we would not do it unilaterally. We would only do it with the agreement of Frankfurt and we did not get it,” he told RTÉ.

“The ECB in Frankfurt has held out solidly that senior bondholders will not be touched. It’s a majority view in Frankfurt. There are governors in Frankfurt who do not hold that view.”

He said the ECB had been “very good to Ireland”, providing almost €200 billion in liquidity. He also added that the Government was reserving its position in relation to Anglo Irish Bank.

He said if Anglo told the Government there was a need for more capital the Government would enter discussions with the ECB on burden-sharing in respect to senior bonds in that institution. But he agreed the Government would not be pushing for renegotiation on senior debt in either AIB or Bank of Ireland.

“The debate is over. Frankfurt would not agree,” he said.

Well let’s take a look at Fine Gael’s banking policy document “Credit Where Credit’s Due”. Pages 5 and 6 list a set of options that Fine Gael wished to pursue for “a more credible, fairer package that is better for Ireland and Europe.”

These options included extending the EFSF “to take equity and long-term debt investments in systemically important European banks, such as AIB and Bank of Ireland”, EU-funded insurance schemes, procedures for restructuring debts of troubled banks, and “a more sustainable funding solution for the Irish banks.”

Page 6 then tells us that

Should some credible, combination of these options prove not be available from Europe, the next Irish Government would – in order to restore its own credit worthiness – be left with little choice but to unilaterally restructure of the private debts of those Irish banks in greatest need of recapitalisation.

Well, none of these options have been made available. And yet rather than unilateral restructuring, we’re told “The debate is over. Frankfurt would not agree.”

Looks like a U-turn to me.

S&P Rating Downgrade

See here for the reasons behind S&P’s downgrade (registration required).   See here for Irish Times report; here for Bloomberg report. 

This is noteworthy:

The downgrade reflects our view of the concluding statement of the European Council (EC) meeting of March 24-25, 2011, that confirms our previously published expectations that (i) sovereign debt restructuring is a possible pre-condition to borrowing from the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), and (ii) senior unsecured government debt will be subordinated to ESM loans. Both features are, in our view, detrimental to the commercial creditors of EU sovereign ESM borrowers.

Reforming Ireland’s Budgetary Framework – Discussion Paper

The Department of Finance has released this paper.