Brendan's figures challenged on the Late Late Show

monagt said:

And every one forgets the mortgages that are not in trouble (yet) which are hanging on via parents direct supplements, parents indirect supplements (clothing children and grandchildren, buying unaffordable food and presents to ease their children's load) and destitution behind closed doors (every expenditure cut to the bone).

These you cannot count so any estimate you guys discuss are just that an estimate!

You don't know.

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I agree.

Plus the Trackers are an explosion waiting to happen. We haven't even scratched the surface.

Hi Novaman

Thanks for the suggestion.

I have now compiled a Mortgage Arrears Factfile

I would welcome any corrections to or questions on the numbers as I believe it's very important that any policy decisions are based on the evidence and not on the hype.

I've not checked any figures.

If McWilliams is completely incorrect how come he has not been pulled on it?

Hi Bronte

I did my best to challenge him, but it was not good enough.

He stated quite clearly " When I forecasted in 2003 that house prices would collapse, people laughed at me. Brendan laughed at me"

He made that up. I did not get a chance to challenge him on it.

I did not get a chance to follow up his denial of his role in the bank guarantee.

He also claimed on the Late Late
"[FONT=&quot]We should bring in a debt for equity swap which was done in America during the Great Depression. "

This really surprised me as debt for equity does not work where there is negative equity. Maybe those clever Americans managed to defy the laws of math. I have emailed McWilliams asking for more information on where this came from and will let you know when he responds to me.

He has repeated this in the Irish Independent

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In the US in the 1930s they introduced a scheme whereby the bank and the individual did a deal. The person's mortgage was reduced and the bank was compensated by being offered half of the potential equity in the house, so that when the house is eventually sold in 10 or 15 years, the bank get first call on half the value of the house.


Now the bank must be able to turn into money the potential equity, which it is now holding until the house is sold. So the bank will have to get someone to lend it money against the collateral, which is the future equity in the house. Who might that be?

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Séamus Coffey has challenged this here saying that the US introduced no such scheme.

I debated this issue with Stephen Donnelly on Prime Time when he claimed that the UK had a successful debt for equity scheme. I told them that they had a scheme but it was limited to borrowers who had a maximum LTV of 80%. Despite being corrected, he repeated it the next day.

It's not fair to struggling borrowers to pretend that there is a free magic bullet which will magic away their problems.

I think that a lot of the debate is divorced from any of the data or evidence and the media is not diligent enough to challenge these sound bites.
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Bronte said:

If McWilliams is completely incorrect how come he has not been pulled on it?

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Hi Bronte

I had a read of his blog and there is a link to a very good, long article "David McWilliams: The Merchant of Guesses" It starts off with a petty point about the population of Gorey, but it gets much better after that. Well worth a read.

Brendan