Nama and bankers take their place as new cuckoos in the nest
By Ivan Yates
Thursday, December 22, 2011
During the Noughties Government buildings entertained interlopers.
Ivan writes another prescient piece on the economic disaster that Brian Lenihan was advised to initiate
Doomed NAMA does not have expertise to carry out its task
By Ivan Yates
Thursday, April 21, 2011
The hoopla emerging from Friday’s distressed property auction in the Shelbourne Hotel obscures huge headaches for the new Government.
They seem unaware the National Asset Management Agency is a dysfunctional monster. Urgent clarity is required as to how it will achieve the implementation of its second business plan. What precisely is its role? A debt collection agency? A property development corporation? The state’s bad bank? The only certainty at this stage is that it has failed to achieve its original objectives as set out in 2009.
Headline in Irish Independent – ” NAMA to pocket €150m profit on UK property deal”
Story in summary
20/21 Grosvenor Square in London bought for £250 million (€290 million)
NAMA took the loan off Irish Nationwide last year for about 50% discount.
However, NAMA paid fees etc top buy this discounted loan from Irish Nationwide which is now nationslised. So any “profit” for NAMA is only clearing out a debt which fell to the taxpayer. The hidden costs are unstated and liable to be considerable. So from a citizen’s viewpoint, it is clear that no real profit has been made and that the bank has been got off the pitch in relation to that particular loan.
Last week, NAMA disclosed that 70% of its loans are non-performing. It is planned to restructure some of these loans and with a lowered interest rate and a prolonged borrowing term.
Fine Gael Finance Spokesman Michael Noonan has today (Friday) launched the Party’s banking policy to bring Ireland’s banking sector back from the brink and stimulate economic recovery.
Speaking at the launch, Deputy Noonan said: ‘The aim of Fine Gael in Government will be to achieve a well-regulated, competitive, profitable, and privately-owned banking system. Crucially, given that the taxpayer has bailed out the banks, we believe the banks must now act in their interests. The banks must go to work for the negative equity generation.’
STATEMENT OF EXCHEQUER SURPLUS / (DEFICIT) in the period ended December 2010
Download the full document here
President Mary McAleese has signed Credit Institutions Stabilisation Bill into law and thus sets up a clash with the ECB who are most concerned about the implications for the collateral that they hold for the massive >€130 billion loans that they have with Irish banks. I think that the ECB is correct and I reckon that the law is unconstitutional as it interferes greatly with the right to private property. I think that the Minister for Finance has aggregated to himself too much power. In summary, yet another FF mistake.
Michael Noonan FG maestro said that while some of the issues raised related to theoretical powers being conferred on the Minister for Finance his primary concern was Section 28 of the Bill which might expose the taxpayer to further losses of billions of euro and that was why it needed to be tested in the Court.
This solo contribution by Dr Leo Varadkar is the best solo effort I have read recently. It is a serious piece of work deserving serious consideration. It was published by the Sunday Business Post on 10 October 2010.
Fionnan Sheehan and Moore McDowell combine to opine:- The core proposal is to invest €18bn in internet, energy and water networks to create 105,000 jobs within four years.
While there’s far more substance to it than to any of the platitudes coming from the Labour Party, NewEra still has a whole lot of question marks hanging over it.
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Damien Kiberd is a sound commentator in my view. His article supports my abhorrence of the NAMA project from the outset. Brian Lenihan Jnr has not been a good Minister for Finance depite the rumours to the contrary. He could be worse in the usual Fianna Fail manner but he has been enveloped by the establishment from the beginning. Kiberd in essence details the evidence that forces him to conclude that Professor Morgan Kelly of UCD is correct in his recent apocalyptic pronouncements in the Irish Times article when he concluded we are bankrupt – only a question of time.
RTE reported on a hands-up speech by An Taoiseach Mr Brian Cowen on the fact that domestic policy played a huge role in the collapse of the banking system. This is progress for him because it may free him to offer some leadership now because the country needs it. I hope the taste of humble pie was not too sour for him! I disagree with him regarding the inclusion of Anglo Irish Bank in the 2008 bank guarantee. With the right noises eminating from government, contagion to Bank of Ireland and AIB was unlikely. Nice try Brian but wrong decision! The other point in this is just how wrong the “experts” can be on the economy. Obviously, nobody added up the size of the property loan book and did stress tests that looked at a price collapse that had been signalled by the OECD or the Economist Intelligence Unit. This should have been done by somebody in the Department of Finance. I wonder did the Secretary General and senior staff receive good performance bonuses that year??? Is the Pope a Catholic?