http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_the_Republic_of_Ireland So Ireland will be having elections in January. Based on a full 25 minutes of leaning on Irish politics it seems that Ireland does not have a noteworthy conservative (American definitions) party. The three main parties are Fianna Fáil a center-left party in power which almost had enough votes to rule by itself in 2007 but needed a few independents and the very small Green Party to make a ruling coalition. Fine Gael the second party is expected to be come the largest Party after the elections because they were not in power when the mess was made. Fine Gael would be center-right and normally is more pro-EU and pro-deregulation and pro business than Fianna Fáil but now they must run as more populist than Fianna Fáil and must oppose the bank bailout to capitalize on the anger at the bank bailout. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael looks like another tweedle-dum versus tweedle-dee political situations as is so common in the world where it is impossible to vote for change because the differences between the two main parties is marginal. The Labour Party is the left most of these parties but is in ruling coalitions only with the right most Fine Gael. That is a strange situation. Sinn Fein is marginal but should gain something from this mess. I expect that I have in some way botched my Irish politics summary since I don't know Irish politics. If any of our Irish people care to explain Irish politics there is some interest now.
Sinn Fein is making a timely move on the south. Gerry Adams is moving his base of operations southward. see http://thepoormouth.blogspot.com/2010/11/gerry-adams-mp-td.html I can't see Sinn Fein winning. The Irish would like to get their noses back in the Capitalist trough as soon as possible.
God, that cartoon was boring. Cartoon Characters who talk like Steven Hawking. Who thought of that one? What. izz. a.Benk? A. Benk. izz. where. people. put. therr.moanay.and. then. goldman. sachs. stealz. it. Gold.Man. Sachs? Yezz. Gold.Man.Sachs. a jee.oo.ish.curm.pan.nee What izz a Jee.oo.oo.w?............................etc I've just figured out what it is. It's something the Republican party have invented to teach Sarah Palin about politics.
nirakar An Irishman here, Fianna Fail are centre right (in european terms, americans have a different concept of what might be considered right and left), Definitely Definitely not centre left (in fact that would drive Irish lefites beserk Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!, so be careful), otherwise your pretty close, as is Fine Gael. They are pratically identical, and constitute the vast majority of the seats in every election, although tht will decline slightly in the next election, Ireland does not have the diversity of the european mainland. Labour are centre-left but only slightly imo. Sinn Fein are not a big player south and that will not change in the election, although they will make some gains It is the other way around or perhaps they are both similar its just Fianna fail has had the power and opportunity to be more corrupt recently, as they have be in governent for well over a decade. The governement has been centre right and many view that free market capitalism has brought our donwfall, the left has had no influence in Ireland in policy making, so when blame is to be assigned in the Irish context, that is important to note, expect more people to vote left or independent in the next election.
On the economic crises in Ireland as a whole the situation is grave The Irish banks loaned recklessly to fuel a property bubble, with the global decline, the bubble popped, but it was always going to irrelevant of what happent internationally, this created a fiscal crises as the government since 07 had severely narrowed the tax base, dramatically increased expenditure all funded by revenue from the property sector, once that was gone we were spending over 50 billion, taking in 34 billion, the numbers are approx. The banks lied and mislead the government regarding their debts and when it became apparent in one night last year that the banks were on the brink of collapse, the government (Fianna Fail) guaranteed overnight, out of the blue that they would cover all deposits money in the Irish banks, a blanket guarantee, they were scared into it by the banks, the government then pumped money into the banks to keep them healthy, unaware of the extent of the problem, , through a serious of events we ended up nationalising the banking sector, slowly but surely by accident, the money came from Europe through a serious of loans on varying levels of interest, the taxpayer is now responsible for the fiscal and banking crises. Fiscal crises - over the last 2 years trying to bring expenditure of 50 billion euro down to low thirties, while trying to keep the banking system afloat by loaning 100s billions, our interest payments alone are expected to be greater than 10 billion in 2014, combine this with our fiscal crises. Personal debt is massive, many people having bought houses in excess of 400,000 euro on near 100% mortgages which are now worth often 50-60% less, unemployment has increased from 4 to almost 14% and this would be more if it wasnt for mass emigration and return to education that has occurred over the 2 years, taking people off the unemployment register and putting them on the education benefits or sent them to Australia or Canada. The apparent solution is to loan us billions that we cant pay back so as to stabilise the European markets in the short term, with the aim of lowering the rate of interest for other struggling economies, Portugal, Spain and to a lesser extent Belgium and Italy. The EU desperately wants to prevent the collapse of the Euro zone, they cant afford to bailout Spain, Portugal appears likely to happen eventually, so they are forcing us to heap massive debts on the taxpayer (not just in Ireland), to stabilise the banking industry across Europe which acted so recklessly . The major problem is not the serious fiscal crisis, but the sovereign debt crisis, which is going to cripple us, debt is expected to reach to nearly 130%GDP with crippling interest payments. Due to the guarantee, the Irish taxpayer is now responsible for the private investments made at a time when these institutions were private, the senior bondholders are going to take zero loss, the taxpayer will pay for it all. A lot of the money loaned to the irish banks came from Europe, they want their money back and the european banking system does not want these loans defaulted on, so hence the Irish were forced into the recent bailout by Europe and the taxpayer is being straddled with the debt for decades. This is not actually going to work, as at least partial default is unavoidable down the road, but the EU and european banks are in part in denial, but also want to get as much as they can out of us, while buying some time to strengthen the core banking system against the shock of default. This time buying is important as the Irish problems were upsetting other struggling economies in the euro zone by scaring the markets, resulting in increasing the interest rates on the loans these struggling economies require to stay afloat, they have bought time and sold us down the river in the meanwhile.
What the Ireland and the EU has failed to do is to recapitalize the banking system. That is the approach that was taken in the US. After initally trying to guarantee bank assets, the US quickly realized that approach was flawed. The correct solution was to recapitalize the banking system. And until that happens, banks in Ireland, Portugal, and Greece are going to continue to have troubles.
actually we have done both (guarantee and recapitalisation), accept the loans in the irish banks are too big for us to handle, and we werent aware of the size of the banks troubles at first (not until we guaranteed and spent 30 billion, mostly into anglo Irish bank which is to be shut down eventually, although that wasnt the original plan) or we wernt aware how rotten the banks loans were (now which is debt), as in the assets that can be seized by the banks are now worth FAR less than the original loans. The recapitalisation money is coming from the irish taxpayer (loaned fron the EU, IMF et al.), yet as I said the banks are too big. I can post links yet but here is a quote on the issue of pouring money into the irish banks, blindly for the most part original article from the Guardain newspaper, I can put up the link when I reach 20 posts the additional 25 billion, bringing the total to 67billion is being agreed and passed this week (IMF bailout), you can see the numbers relative to GDP are astronomical. We need the senior bondholders to take some of the hit imo, but that isnt the plan.
No that is not recapitalization. Recapitalization means you go to the open market and issue new shares. It does not mean you take on more loans from the government or any other loaner. Until I have seen a recapitalization of the Irish banking system, I am not a buyer of Irish bank stocks.
Is that a complete definition of recapitalisation? I thought recapitalisation was a restructuring of a business's capital structure which includes pumping in additional capital into the banks from an outside source (in this case the taxpayer), the government have bought shares and now own all the banks. Can you explain your proposal in more detail? article from GFSnews.com (Global Financial Strategy) This is the latest injection agreed under the bailout and it refers to it as recapitalisation if you type "recapitalisation of irish banks" into google you will get loads of detail and articles on this, so I am confused as when you say no capitalisation has been undertaken (as in your definition)??? another reference to recapitalisation, sorry again but I cant post links, this is from the irish times 5 days ago that hasnt happen, but knowone will invest in Irish banks, the biggest problem bank is Anglo and that is set to be shut down as it is not viable, the irish govrnement have injected 25 billion into it. Attempts recently by Allied Irish bank to raise 10 billion has failed and now it will have to be fully nationalisied by the governement, the banks are insolvent and are inable to borrow from th markets, they have been shut out. NAMA has also been set up to manage the bad loans in the banks from wikipedia, there is an extensive page on the body
I feel so sorry for the Irish, they have lost their shirts, stripped of their cash and hung out to dry by the banksters. It's the potato famine all over again except this time it's not potatoes but euros.
Recapitalization means changing the capital structure of the insitution. The European solution was to guarantee bad assets. What is needed and will eventually happen, is that new capital (ownership capital) be injected into the banks. That mean existing bank owners who have thus far been protected are going to take a haircut. It the government takes them over completely and wipes out existing ownership, that is a capital restructuring and something likely to happen. In the US, our banks are now stable because of action by the government to recapitalize the banks using private financing. Most of our major banks have repaid all of the money initially provided to them by our government. Large bad debt means banks need a much larger paid in capital based to become solvent.
Although Iceland's banks certainly made huge "subprime" like loan mistakes and went bust, the government reacted quite differently than the US and Irish government did and seems to be better off for it now. "... Unlike other nations, including the U.S. and Ireland, which injected billions of dollars of capital into their financial institutions to keep them afloat, Iceland placed its biggest lenders in receivership. It chose not to protect creditors of the country’s banks, whose assets had ballooned to $209 billion, 11 times gross domestic product. ... “Iceland did the right thing by making sure its payment systems continued to function while creditors, not the taxpayers, shouldered the losses of banks,” says Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, an economics professor at Columbia University in New York. ... Arni Pall Arnason, 44, Iceland’s minister of economic affairs, says the decision to make debt holders share the pain saved the country’s future. “If we’d guaranteed all the banks’ liabilities, we’d be in the same situation as Ireland,” says Arnason, whose Social Democratic Alliance was a junior coalition partner in the Haarde government. By guaranteeing bank liabilities, Ireland faces a public debt burden as high as 12 times the country’s GDP. Iceland’s is about 85 percent. ..." From: http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a76dlF6szAp4&pos=7 SUMMARY: US and Ireland seem to have the "privatize profits and socialize losses" approach, but not Iceland. It will be interesting to see how it all turns out for their (and US & Irish) citizens in the end. Admittedly it was easier for Iceland to send the bill to the bank's creditors instead of the tax payers as the creditors were mainly English and a few other Europeans taking advantage of unsustainable interest rates before the banks failed, not citizens of Iceland. It is an interesting thing about "unsustainable" things like borrowing more than you can pay back - they don't continue forever.
