Comments for Brian O'Doherty's Blog

Comment on Is this the newbie Irish currency? by Brenda E Cowley-Waters

Brenda E Cowley-Waters — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 06:30:18 +0000

Me too love the Rainbow – wonder if there is a pot of gold at the end of it????

Comment on Digital sand art from Ukraine by Brenda E Cowley-Waters

Brenda E Cowley-Waters — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 11:48:50 +0000

Amazing and so thought provoking especially when one considers hat might happen this country in the future with the election of Mr Putain????

Comment on Morgan Kelly gets it wrong.. by Brian

Brian — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 17:22:48 +0000

Yes, Peter, I do.
Of course, a bank can be “talked down”. The banking business model depends on Trust (confidence) and Time. And always has. Banks lend money for a period of time, usually related to the financing requirement, such as to bridge the gap between purchase of raw materials and sale of production. Without Time there is no need for “finance”. And without Trust, the bank itself can’t raise the money in the first place. So, if people with titles such as “Professor” keep screaming on OpEd pages of the leading opinion-forming journals that the bank is bust, then it is to be expected that depositors of finance in that bank will pull out the deposits and cause it to be bust. If they are aided by the chief protector of our banking system going around the world offering the banks for sale for a dollar, as our esteemed CB Governor has been doing for a year, then its perfectly understandable that international investors and depositors confidence in the banks will be damaged. And if the Irish governments sovereign guarantee of deposits in the bank is unable to stop the run on deposits, then we know there’s not only panic surrounding the bank but no faith in the governments promises either. (In my view, it was the loss of confidence in the State, following the NAMA-AIB-three billion extra panic of last September, that led directly to the outflow of deposits and the need to raise an extra 100 billion from the central banks)
As for mortgagees..they signed on to, let us say, pay 1200 euros a month over 25 years to finance their houses, at extremely low interest rates. They should have been told that interest rates were incredibly low and could only go up in time. (I think they were, actually). But, irrespective of the later value of the house, all they have to pay is the contracted 1200 , plus interest variations. Negative equity only matters when they come to sell the house. And in that case, first time buyers, looking to trade up, will see the advantage of moving up with less extra downpayment requirement. The only substantial sector of the house owning population who suffers from declining values is the elderly, such as thousands of bank shareholders, who, having lost their savings and investment in bank shares, essentially because of NAMA, now find that they’ve lost half their house equity as well. But nobody seems to care about them.

Comment on Morgan Kelly gets it wrong.. by Peter W

Peter W — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 20:14:20 +0000

Do you still stand by your analysis of Prof. Kelly’s hysteria?

Comment on More good news for the banks not mentioned ! by monex.com

monex.com — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 04:30:49 +0000

…by Karen Maley….Australian banks could face hefty losses on their 4 billion of loans to Ireland as part of the restructuring of the country s failed banking system..On the weekend Ireland finally capitulated to pressure and officially requested emergency financial assistance from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund..In exchange for providing this assistance the EU and IMF will insist on Ireland implementing tough austerity measures such as cutting the minimum wage and reducing the size of the public sector..But the EU and IMF will also pressure Dublin to shrink the size of the oversized Irish banking system. As a result Irish banks are likely to speed up their current plans to off-load their foreign operations and reduce the size of their balance sheets even if this means that they have to dump assets at a steep discount..But bankers and investors in Irish bank bonds are terrified that the EU and the IMF will go further and force the Irish government to wind back its open-ended commitment to guarantee the senior debts of the Irish banks..These fears were fanned by comments by Dutch finance minister Jan Kees de Jager overnight when he warned that the restructuring of the Irish banking sector was likely to result in pain for the banks shareholders as well as holders of subordinated bonds in Irish banks..At the same time financiers are keenly aware that there is growing disquiet in Germany at the seeming never-ending nature of the bailouts and the ever-escalating costs of rescuing debt-laden eurozone countries. They argue that providing countries such as Ireland and Greece with emergency bailout funding is only delaying the unavoidable end-game when banks and bond holders will be forced to take a haircut on some of their loans to these countries..And this could mean lenders to Ireland including Australian banks facing hefty losses on their Irish loans..According to figures from the Bank for International Settlements Australian banks had a combined exposure of US3.72 billion to Irish borrowers at the end of June this year..This is a relatively minor exposure compared with some of the country s biggest lenders.

Comment on A Good NAMA and a Bad NAMA by BaronWuffit

BaronWuffit — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 16:44:17 +0000

I fully agree

Comment on What we dont know about NAMA and allied matters by Brian Flanagan

Brian Flanagan — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 21:53:39 +0000

Brian
You might have a look at the following item about 1.5% vs 4.5%

http://www.planware.org/briansblog/2009/10/nama—the-real-default-rate.html

Comment on Banks – no need to panic by paul quigley

paul quigley — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 09:09:47 +0000

‘ The reality is that our main banks–and with them, control over all Irish owned deposits- would have to be passed over to foreigners. At that stage, we might as well throw away all pretence to economic sovereignty’

Irish banking interests may have had some sort of loyalty or commitment to the Irish economy, but only up to the point where a more attractive opportunity came their way.

Insofar as banking is a utility, the important thing is that it is accessible, and that it is run and regulated safely. Ireland didn’t do too good on that score.

Insofar as banking offers entrepreneurial opportunities, ‘the divil take the hindmost’ remains the motto. The lazy way to win is to fix the game.

‘Our’ bankers ‘persuaded’ the government to facilitate the blowing of their property bubble. The record will show that our banking system, and our sovereignty, was thoroughly abused in the process.

Given the widespread nature of such misconduct in the global financial services ‘industry’, it is difficult to see ahead, but I think we have seen enough of the ‘Green Jersey’ to look with equanimity on ‘foreign takeovers’.

Comment on Banks – no need to panic by Brian

Brian — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 11:36:47 +0000

Pat…The so called “state aid” which AIB is receiving is far inferior than that which many other banks across the EU are receiving. In reality, the EU Commissionn has no case against AIB/BOI. There is no discrimination or distortion of competition here…In fact, foreign banks are pulling out of Ireland, with encouragement from their own governments, in order to concentrate funds on lending in their own domestic markets–having caused much of the lending problem here in the first place! And the EU Commission is to be blamed also–for setting up a single monetary policy based in Frankfurt, which infused cheap funds into our market at the wrong time, just because it suited certain larger countries. The Commissionn has failed, over the past 20 years, to formulate economic policy that suits the peripheral regions of Europe

As for buying AIB…see my next post, but take your own risks.

Comment on Banks – no need to panic by Pat Donnelly

Pat Donnelly — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 02:51:54 +0000

Europe is running the NAMA decisions. They will say what is to happen. I have commented on this on http://Irisheconomy.ie, where I noticed your website.

I find you advice to take up rights bizarre! If I do so and lose money, may I sue you? I presume you have an interest in advising strangers?