Irish banking shares in complete meltdown (again)

The Celtic tiger has been shot. Bottom - we are high on the downward slope and about to pick up speed on the downside.

The people leading the company are a totally unsuitable bunch to lead us out of this.
 
I don't understand why people are so suprised.

What Goes Up Must Come Down. People thought Ireland was different but its not. As we went up higher than most, we will come down deeper than most.
 
There is little or no media mention of a certain Drumcondra based former Taoiseach, who led us into the present situation.
Timing is everything ... what a great move he made in getting out when he did.
 
To blame Bertie for all our woes is extremely unfair. Did he make Sean Fitzpatrick take out those dodgy loans? I think most people at this stage would admit that the burden of responsibilty lies on quite a few shoulders.
 
I don't think he's to blame for all the woes, but he knew the right time to leave the ship!
 
Humdinger said:
There is little or no media mention of a certain Drumcondra based former Taoiseach, who led us into the present situation.
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I really am unable to see as to how persons out there are simply blaming Bertie for this downturn. It is an international matter, caused by irresponsible lending by Banks, nothing more or nothing less. When the Central Bank issued warnings they were dismissed by Joe Public and the Banks themselves. When the Government did try and placed respectability on what was going on, they were met with severe confrontation. Now every modern Western Democracy is having it bad, a lot worse than us in Ireland and its all the blame of Bertie and FF !!! People get real and wake up and smell the coffee.
 

And you are a FF supporter I take it?
 

Flawed analysis there. Name me one country in the Industrialised world who has seen the same rapid decline of public finances as Ireland? Is this the same Government who had the height of the bubble were creating and maintaining tax breaks for developers. Holiday home in the middle of nowhere anyone? Is this the same Central Bank that wrote off any chance off a crash and continuously talked about a soft landing and sound fundamentals. This irresponsible lending that you talk about was carried out by our so called 'regulated' banks under the noses of the Financial Regulator and the Central Bank. Remember their reaction when 100% mortgages were introduced?

Of course international problems are contributing to our situation but the majority of the problems facing Ireland such as property crash, lack of competitiveness, deterioration in public finances were created in Ireland by the Irish Government and it has to be said by the Irish people.
 
Not active but a realist to know that if apportioning blame send it in the right direction Sure there have been some mistakes made but to blame the Government for a world wide intensive slowdown is something the iirsh Government had no control of.
 
mercman said:
I really am unable to see as to how persons out there are simply blaming Bertie for this downturn. It is an international matter, caused by irresponsible lending by Banks, nothing more or nothing less.
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That's a bit of a distortion, a distortion favoured by the government until they seemed to realise that people were not believing them. Yes, there is a huge international problem. When the impact of the US sub-prime debacle first hit the headlines our politicians and commentators assured us that Irish financial institutions were not seriously exposed, as they had not bought the dodgy securities in any great quantity. Then our own problem emerged: our banks were not exposed to the international problem because they had created a home-grown one.

Bertie is in part responsible. So is Charlie McCreevey.
 
mercman said:
Now every modern Western Democracy is having it bad, a lot worse than us in Ireland
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Em, you are misinformed.

Only Latvia has a worse economy than Ireland in EU

[broken link removed]

Which other worse-performing Western Democracies are you aware of?
 

Mercman, absolutely agree that it would be ludicrous to place the blame for the current situation on one set of shoulders. Credit is certainly due to Bertie and Co. for opening the economy to international investment and creating the national pension reserve, however you must accept that the key drivers of the current situation were the FF policies of adopting a resolutely pro-cyclical spending strategy and also effectively commoditising property through CGT, IT and CT incentives and facilitating light lending regulation, to the point where completely unsustainable values were reached.

These were conscious political decisions, which initially contributed to the defeat of the more cautious Labour/FG coalition and latterly were made despite strong warnings here from the Central Bank, ESRI, the Bacon Reports and others - a strong government is capable of leading Joe Public when necessary for the long-term good of the State, not just pandering to opinion polls and lobbies. Similarly, the Government through it's agencies is ultimately responsible for ensuring sustainable lending practices by the banks, not vice-versa. The opposition you refer to when the Government made a half-hearted attempt to implement a watered-down Bacon III came from vested construction and financial interests, not Joe Public, as I very clearly recall. At the end of the day though, the electorate made it's decision on three occasions and got the goverment it wanted, so as a democracy responsibility ultimately lies with ourselves as voters. By the time the Government and it's supporters finally realised that a frenzied trade in overvalued property funded by risky borrowing might be lucrative but does not constitute a stable economy, it was already too late.

The property bubble was popping here before the international crunch hit, and we were heading for rough times regardless - the international situation simply compounded our own weak position and gave us all a new set of systemic problems to deal with. I think one of the most shocking aspects of the whole affair was the massive underlying fiscal weakness of the exchequer, which was revealed to all only after the construction bubble burst.
 
I bet emigration was the last thing on your mind when the country was on the up for the past couple of years!!

Me thinks instant gratification, instant solutions to problems and no patience is par for the course.

Having worked in the financial sector and having been there for the collapse of AIB Shares in the eighties, when shares plummeted and the talk then was nationalisation, bail out by the Government (which did happen) subsequently followed by a bank levy for millions every year for many years, and we had serious interest rates, serious high tax bands, but we stuck with it despite the slings and arrows and guess what, the bank shares came back up, as they always do. We are nowadays bombarded by so called financial experts everywhere, on the telly on the radio....I even heard a well known Dublin Comedian (no, not from Leinster house) answering questions of idiots ringing in a radio 1 show giving advice. God save us all, I say. Everybody has an opinion and we are talking about the gullible public here!!!! Loyalty and patience......look at the attitude of the Americans now that Obama is in power....listen to THEIR comments, by and large, they do the loyalty thing......good attitude works! We should ALL give it a try!










Towger said:
Almost 52% now for AIB. Is hitting 20 cent the threshold for nationalisation? Time to emigrate soon
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Mopsy said:
Loyalty and patience......look at the attitude of the Americans now that Obama is in power....listen to THEIR comments, by and large, they do the loyalty thing......good attitude works! We should ALL give it a try!
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I didn't even think the most delusional Zanu FFers would try to compare Barack Obama to Biffo.
 
Mopsy said:
Loyalty and patience......look at the attitude of the Americans now that Obama is in power....listen to THEIR comments, by and large, they do the loyalty thing......good attitude works! We should ALL give it a try!
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Um, how do you know it works? It hasn't worked out too well with Dubya, now has it? Some of them even prayed for him...

Don't get me wrong, I think Mr. Obama is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but he is not a magician. There is no magic wand. He will say this and he will keep on saying it.

So, have hope, but do not underestimate the gravity of the situation or seek to blame others for the predicament we find ourselves in. And why do we find ourselves in this predicament? Answer that and fix that problem and we are half-way to being out of it.
 
A 2006 quote from the great B. Ahern - Friday, April 07th, 2006

Quote:
"The Taoiseach has said he does not see a great problem with the levels of borrowing to buy property.

Mr Ahern said there had been predictions of a huge downturn in 2005.

He added the bad advice given by so many resulted in some people making mistakes when they should have bought property last year".

http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/0407/housing.html



History will not remember this p**ck kindly.
 
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