We are where we are, BROKE

Its like watching a car crash. Government bluster was unspun when the Governor of the Central Bank outed the extxent of the bail out needed on Morning Irekand. Since then Fianna Fail and the greens have grasped at straws. Eamon Gilmore, Pat Rabbitte and Michael Noonan have battered the government over their denial at the extent of the fiscal mess.
Basically the problem I the banks. They spoofed the government and Fine Gael and Sinn Fein on the bank guarantee. That pushed back 2 years the day of reckoning as FF & the greens hoped that NAMA would revive their builder buddies and their paymaster banks. NAMA had morphed into a good bad bank while Anglo wanted to be a good bank and a bad bank while nobody told the department exactly how bad the mess was.
Just as Greece misled the EU on their own economic data the Irish big lie was the failure of the banks to level with the government on their precise position and the governments failure to have a regulatory regime. I’ve never rated Brian Lenihan as a Minister for Finance and the media who fawned over him in the last 2 years must be cringing today after his radio interview that failed to explain how the government decision to agree to the EU/IMF programme (not a bail out)) was despite the fact that we had enough money to keep the state (but not the banks) going until June next year was in the best interest of the euro.
It made Brian Cowen’s infamous Galway interview sound positively Churchillian by comparison. John Gormley thinks that the IMF arrival is good and may hasten changes he wanted to see for a long time! Lets see how that one pans out given the reality that TEEU has warned at civil disobedience and already there have been skirmishes between Gardaí and the SWM/PBP micro group at a student demo while an Eirigi councillor has thrown paint at Mary Harney.. The fear is that the next week building up to the demonstration in Dublin next week will be more of the economic reality of the IMF medicine for the country. The fear is that the low hanging fruit is gone and cuts will damage our country beyond the basics of what is needed for a cohesive society.
I hope I’m wrong but this could get very dirty as the Greens and Fianna Fail may well decide to tough it out with the people. Knowing many garda are as fed up with the government as the rest of us, can the government rely on every garda to do their bidding? A government that has just support from 20% of the people in the opinion rivals the support of that wonderful outfit the East German Communist Party at the end. I don’t believe they have any credibility nor right to govern. The Taoiseachs approval rating is now just in double figures and slightly ahead of the yield on Irish 10 year bonds.
We as a society are turning a corner but not the corner visualised when Brian Lenihan called us all to patriotic duty. The time has come for Cowen and Lenihan to do their patriotic duty and go and let the rest of us decide who will run our country. And while I think of it his predecessors son in law who warbles with a boy band has called for economic positivity from us.

The kindness of strangers

Eventually we were found out on the banks. What looked like the cutest move 2 years ago to guarantee al the account holders in Irish banks and the bond holders who leant to them to a total value of €300 Billion has bounced on Fianna Fail, the Greens, Fine Gael and Sinn Fein. Tonight its clear that the EU and the IMF see the down side of this.
Bail Out 1 in 2008 was rolled out to restructure the banks leading to the line under the affair on Black Thursday in September. The problem is that the value of €50 Billion which FF told us would be the cheapest bail out ever and that would ensure Ireland would be the first out of recession has only made matters worse because the €50 B figure isn’t believed anymore by the money market.

So the advance party is on it’s way and will be here by the end of the week. The problem is that the Greens and Fianna Fail nationalised banking debt accumulated by bank rolling the FF developer buddy clique. The prospect of allowing Anglo or the Irish Nationwide to go to the wall was a step too far for FF and the greens. Thence the ultimatum that seems to have been given from EU member states as the prospect of dithering is destabilising the euro and pressurising Spain and Portugal. The big question is has the EU got enough to support the Spanish and Portuguese economies? So when they plane lands at Dublin Airport in the next few days and the officials from the EU or ECB or IMF or more likely all 3 arrive in Merrion St they should consider bringing a bottle of whiskey to break the atmosphere. As the old Irish proverb says “There’s no strangers here only friends who haven’t yet met”

Black Thursday was supposed to draw a line under the past however the markets don’t believe the government’s figure of €50 Billion. Indeed the markets have made their mind up on the government. The humiliation of a nation will follow as Fianna Fail will dress the bail out as a bank bail 2!
They’ll continue with the line that there is no bail out but there is additional support for the bank industry. What they won’t point out is that the bank guarantee scheme backs private debt with the states resources! In 2008 the fiscal difficulties that our government adjusted spending to cope with were caused by a reduction in tax income not by a spending requirement to sustain the unsustainable. Throw in the national fault lines within the eurozone and the internal need to support each states own economy and it’s a short hop and a skip and a jump from the Galway Tent to Anglo Irish to Merrion St and before you know it you’ve the Euro on the slide and the internal economies of 5 states in the melting pot.

As a guide to how we’ve fallen Russia Today has some guy comparing Ireland to a 3rd world dictatorship where the general has made off with the money. In such countries at least a coup usually followed. So how close are we to social strife now? Where will this end for Cowen, Ahern, Harney, McCreevy and the banking elite? The kindness strangers is seemingly more attractive to our society than the greed of old friends.