Moody's cuts Ireland's credit rating to junk status

More [broken link removed].

To paraphrase from The Snapper - I suppose a bond buyback is out of the question?

I like the last line in the article

'It added that the country retains investment-grade status with the other main ratings agencies.'

Not for long........Once one jumps the others shortly follow!

Ouch, our bonds wouldn't even make it into the pound shop Dr M ! The weather's crap, the economic outlook likewise, can someone visit us and cheer us up? But... not Barosso, Van Rumpouy, Sarky, Merkel, ...maybe Berlusconi, he's always good for a laugh.

Ryanair & Aer Lingus have good value on one way tickets to Lanzarote or Tenerife

One word - FUBAR

What does this mean for the average Joe Soap?

allenk said:

What does this mean for the average Joe Soap?

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Nothing.

allenk said:

What does this mean for the average Joe Soap?

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Hard to know.

The markets are saying we will probably not pay back €2 out of every €3 we have borrowed as a country.

Funnily, in a few years time, about €1 out of every €3 we owe will be banking losses.

So it now looks like not only can we not pay our banking losses, but we will also default on up to half of our borrowings for day to day spending.

If you look around, there are a lot of countries with double the debts (in terms of incomes) that the markets feel we can sustain - The US, The EU & Japan.

For some reason the markets are only turning on these one by one rather than looking at the absolute picture that several countries would be classified as broke and unable to borrow internationally if the same principles were applied to them in terms of debt versus ability to pay.

It's a mystery to me why this selective assessment is occuring one country at a time.

It's another mystery as to why we are being given €70bn when we are unlikely to pay back most of it. For now we should be grateful that the situation is so bizarre that we are being handed money to maintain our living standards despite having no chance of repaying.

You can see a map of the world colour coded by Standard and Poor's credit rating at:

http://chartsbin.com/view/1177

We're in with India, Mexico, Brazil, Russia and South Africa - good company.

And on the six o'clock news I heard that the financial sharks are circling, threshing about.

The values of stock are falling even in Germany (4%) and France is defending its position.

So that means America's war-mongering or war-supporting "friends" including Britain, Canada and Australia are "all right Jack".

I think its past time that the Stock Exchanges and "rating" agencies were investigated and regulated, because it seems clear from this there is a racket going on.


ONQ.

rustbucket said:

I like the last line in the article

'It added that the country retains investment-grade status with the other main ratings agencies.'

Not for long........Once one jumps the others shortly follow!

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Here are the recent views of the other agencies

July 7th: [broken link removed]

Ireland is unlikely to default on its debt, Chris Pryce, a sovereign credit analyst with Fitch Ratings, said today.

“Our ratings, which are investment grade reflect the view that we certainly don't believe that Ireland is likely to default,” Pryce said in a telephone interview today. Fitch has a BBB+ rating on Ireland.

Developments in Greece haven't been “sufficient” to change Fitch's views on Ireland at this stage, Pryce said. The economy's return to growth in the first quarter and progress in reducting the budget deficit in the first half have “been marginally on the positive side” since April, he said.

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August 5th: Standard and Poor's

In our opinion, the Irish government's fiscal strategy should be capable of putting the public finances on a more sustainable path.

We expect Ireland's marginal funding costs at this time to have declined to rates of around 6% or lower, a level that in our view would not put the government's debt dynamics at risk.

We expect Ireland's net general government debt burden will peak at about 110% of GDP in 2013, including NAMA's debt obligations, before falling to about 103% of GDP in 2015. Excluding NAMA obligations, we expect net debt to peak at around 97% of GDP in 2014.

The stable outlook reflects our view of the balanced risks to Ireland's creditworthiness. However, if the government doesn't achieve its fiscal strategy, downward pressure on the ratings could build. Alternatively, were the economy to return more quickly to average real GDP per capita growth rates above our current expectation of 1.6% during 2011-2015, we could consider raising the ratings.

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