# NAMA - FG  says it won't work. What happens if it does ?



## mercman (22 Oct 2009)

Fine Gael and Labour and Sinn Fein have spent the past three months spouting off as to how they fully believe that NAMA will fail. What happens if it is a success ? Will the Top Brass at these Political Parties do the honorable thing and resign from Political Life permanently.  What a thought ?? Any comments ?


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## Brendan Burgess (22 Oct 2009)

The problem with NAMA is that we won't know whether it will work or not for at least 10 years. 

We may know earlier if it fails. 

Brendan


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## gunnerfitzy (22 Oct 2009)

Like FF did the honourable thing after getting us into this mess??


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## Complainer (22 Oct 2009)

mercman said:


> Fine Gael and Labour and Sinn Fein have spent the past three months spouting off as to how they fully believe that NAMA will fail. What happens if it is a success ? Will the Top Brass at these Political Parties do the honorable thing and resign from Political Life permanently.  What a thought ?? Any comments ?


What do you think should happen to the current bunch when it does fail?


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## mercman (23 Oct 2009)

gunnerfitzy said:


> Like FF did the honourable thing after getting us into this mess??



And now I suppose it is FF fault that most of Europe is in the same mess. Go to Holland which is in a bigger mess than here. 

Governments cannot and should not interfere with Private Enterprise. Sure FF are not perfect by any extreme. The amount of waste by certain Government departments is disgusting. By giving Civil Servants wages substantially more than their Private enterprise equivalents is pure foolish and mad. But everybody stop turning off the memory clock when it suits. Why oh why did so many members of the other Political parties ride the band wagon and become property developers - some big and some small. Even the Labour Camp have their candidates and Sinn Fein have their candidates. So mplease stop apportioning the blame when we're all responsible.


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## mercman (23 Oct 2009)

Complainer said:


> What do you think should happen to the current bunch when it does fail?



And funnily enough I do not think it will fail. I think there will be some light showing within three years. And the current bunch - well they are doomed anyway because the crank machine is running on overdrive. But I for one do not fancy living in a country been run by a Kenny and Gilmore clown routine.


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## Chris (23 Oct 2009)

mercman said:


> And now I suppose it is FF fault that most of Europe is in the same mess. Go to Holland which is in a bigger mess than here.
> 
> Governments cannot and should not interfere with Private Enterprise.



Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you are contradicting yourself here. In the first sentence you seem to indicate that the current mess isn't FF's fault, but in the second you correctly point out that government should not interfere with private enterprise. 
FF, and all other governements around the world, have been and are interfering with the (non)free-market economy. While there is a lot of finger pointing by opposition parties, I believe that they would have made equally desasterous mistakes through market interferences of their own.
Appologies if I've misunderstood your point.


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## Mpsox (23 Oct 2009)

I think firstly you have to define what you mean by "fail" and "success". In 10 years time, if NAMA had lost €1billion, FF may consider that a success, FG may consider it a failure, (personnally I'd consider it a minor miracle).

I can't see NAMA ever making a profit as too much of the land banks (eg Irish Glass site) are grossely overvalued, even allowing for amounts the banks have already written off. It will depend on the scale of the loss and no matter what happens, all sides will put their own spin on it.

What we don't have is a properly costed alternative. It's easy to say no to NAMA because is seems "wrong", probably has an amount of overpaying for loans in it, has a very optamistic business plan and potentially will cost us billions, but personnally I've never seen a properly costed alternative solution


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## mercman (23 Oct 2009)

You understood the point correctly - it is just the manner which I have presented it that is confusing. Your post Chris is exactly the point I was trying to make.


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## gunnerfitzy (23 Oct 2009)

I'm sure that mistakes would have been made by other parties if they had been in government at the time. However, that is no excuse to avoid accepting responsibility for what happened on your watch. 'Someone else would probably have done the same' just doesn't cut it. What party gave the public sector those increases that have allegedly put them so far ahead of the private sector solely in an effort to buy votes? Let responsibility for the success or failure of NAMA be taken when such is known. But let responsibility for the atrocious management of this country to date be taken now.


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## mercman (23 Oct 2009)

gunnerfitzy said:


> But let responsibility for the atrocious management of this country to date be taken now.



A very sensible Post. If the opposition parties really wanted to halp solve the issues they would offer support. Instead they are backing the Unions to support them for their overpaid members. And as for NAMA FG, Labour and SF just keep making bigger idiots of themselves than what they really are.


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## gunnerfitzy (23 Oct 2009)

It is in the country's best interests that all parties work together to get the country back on it's feet. Being against a policy just because it is from a different party is petty at best and utterly irresponsible. Opinions on NAMA differ amongst leading economists so of course it differs amongst political parties. Opposition parties have tabled over 100 amendments to the NAMA bill. It will be interesting to know how many of these will be accepted. I have no doubt that there are some proposed amendments which are there purely for political point scoring. But some are there to strengthen protection for the taxpayer. I wonder will even 10% of the proposed amendments be accepted by the government?


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## Chris (23 Oct 2009)

gunnerfitzy said:


> I'm sure that mistakes would have been made by other parties if they had been in government at the time. However, that is no excuse to avoid accepting responsibility for what happened on your watch. 'Someone else would probably have done the same' just doesn't cut it. What party gave the public sector those increases that have allegedly put them so far ahead of the private sector solely in an effort to buy votes? Let responsibility for the success or failure of NAMA be taken when such is known. But let responsibility for the atrocious management of this country to date be taken now.



The point is not that they 'probably' would have made mistakes. The point is that all governments/political parties try to interfere in the economy, and that ALL forms and means of intervention are negative on the economy. Unless there is a political party out there that says they wouldn't have intervfered during the boom and bust, it is safe to say that any form of government would have made the same mistake of intervening in what ever shape or form.


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## z101 (23 Oct 2009)

There is a headline in todays indo business section 'former bank of england expert warns NAMA plan a big mistake. In the middle of the article it says Prof Nouriel Roubini, who is noted by the way as the only guy who predicted the world economic collapse before it happened thinks NAMA is the right idea. Even agreeing with overpaying for the assets by some degree.
I would of though this would have headline news.! This guy is considered an economic God afterall. I never even heard of Willem Buiter who the headline is about.


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## canicemcavoy (23 Oct 2009)

mercman said:


> Fine Gael and Labour and Sinn Fein have spent the past three months spouting off as to how they fully believe that NAMA will fail. What happens if it is a success ? Will the Top Brass at these Political Parties do the honorable thing and resign from Political Life permanently. What a thought ?? Any comments ?


 
I'm not sure is this a parody. Surely since Fianna Fails' economic policies have been an abysmal failure for this country, you think they should have resigned first?

Apologies if someone has stolen the real Mercman.


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## gunnerfitzy (24 Oct 2009)

Chris said:


> The point is not that they 'probably' would have made mistakes. The point is that all governments/political parties try to interfere in the economy, and that ALL forms and means of intervention are negative on the economy. Unless there is a political party out there that says they wouldn't have intervfered during the boom and bust, it is safe to say that any form of government would have made the same mistake of intervening in what ever shape or form.



Surely Chris, a function of government is management of the economy? The prosperity of a country is completely dependent on the economy. What no party or government should do is manage the economy in reckless, narrow minded, vote winning fashion. The policies of appeasement and unwarranted wage and social welfare rises, coupled with reliance on one-off property taxes are the reason we are where we are today.  The ecomony should have been managed in a sustainable manner. A first year economics student would be able to tell us that the strength of economies are cyclic and that it was inevitable that a recession was going to come along. So where is our little stash for a rainy day? Why weren't policies introduced to move away from large one off taxes e.g. stamp duty & VRT, which were dependent on economic growth? The answer is simple... greed. Unwarranted, unnecessary and self-fulfilling intervention should never take place, but proper management with nothing but the countries long term prosperity is what a government is there for.


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## Chris (27 Oct 2009)

gunnerfitzy said:


> Surely Chris, a function of government is management of the economy? The prosperity of a country is completely dependent on the economy. What no party or government should do is manage the economy in reckless, narrow minded, vote winning fashion. The policies of appeasement and unwarranted wage and social welfare rises, coupled with reliance on one-off property taxes are the reason we are where we are today.  The ecomony should have been managed in a sustainable manner. A first year economics student would be able to tell us that the strength of economies are cyclic and that it was inevitable that a recession was going to come along. So where is our little stash for a rainy day? Why weren't policies introduced to move away from large one off taxes e.g. stamp duty & VRT, which were dependent on economic growth? The answer is simple... greed. Unwarranted, unnecessary and self-fulfilling intervention should never take place, but proper management with nothing but the countries long term prosperity is what a government is there for.



Yes countries are dependent on their economies.
No, governments should not be responsible for the economy, this should be left to the free market with a sound banking system. The problem is that politicians' only worry is getting re-elected and they will do so by any means available to them. Long-term gains do not bring in votes at the next election.


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## mercman (27 Oct 2009)

gunnerfitzy said:


> he answer is simple... greed. Unwarranted, unnecessary and self-fulfilling intervention should never take place, but proper management with nothing but the countries long term prosperity is what a government is there for.



Agreed with your post but am unable to with an opposition in place that criticises every move the Government makes is not good for any country. If we all could see the last Bacon report a few years ago, the Government tried to cool the market and the opposition made such a noise that the Govt had to back off. And even now the FG Policies are all over the shop.  It wouold be daft to say what is there is good but with an opposition like we have in play, then we would be the Comedy Club of Europe.


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## Complainer (27 Oct 2009)

mercman said:


> If we all could see the last Bacon report a few years ago, the Government tried to cool the market and the opposition made such a noise that the Govt had to back off.


Can you clarify what you mean by this?


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