there was single lane and half arsed roundabouts at the enterance to it that made a balls of the traffic
I heard Anglo are offering very big salaries too but the hours are awfully long working through the shit. I know of a lad who’s just joined NAMA and he expects to be getting a bonus at the end of the year coming from a bank that hasn’t paid any in the last 2 years. Loads of contract options, as dan says. I know of someone who was offered a 2 year contract by AIB. I’d be tempted to have a scout around myself only that I can’t be arsed doing the interview process and you never quite know what you’re walking into until you start somewhere no matter how much research you do.
welcome back tom
the notion of you giving financial advise is amusing nevertheless NAMA will prevent or at least delay for years any potential recovery in the State. NAMA was supposed to enable the banks to be able to lend money - is that happening - is it fuck. My own opinion is that there is still undocumented black holes in the balance sheets of the 4 banks that taxpayers money or borrowed money is being ploughed into. Your view that overseas investors would be willing to put money into the likes of Nationwide and Anglo is delusional in the extreme. So the government wouldnt have cut off anything by allowing them to fail. If investors lost money - fuck them, they are the risks you take. In any other industry those organisation would have been allowed to fail, this NAMA experiment distorts the market and rewards failure.
the nationalised instituion I proposed would have been a temporary mechanism to recapitalise the combined institution with money from Europe. The four banks are as good as nationalised institutions at present now anyway. Anyone who works in Anglo is a civil servant effectively FFS.
Imo NAMA as it is transpiring is a very bad deal for taxpayers
:lol: . Have they sold out the retail space in Terminal 2 yet?
It is pretty sick stuff. Elderfield and them are probably pushing for the banks to hire more risk and compliance people. the State paying huge salaries for people to work on behalf of their dead bank is vile.
big time - noone wants to pass through that shithole on their way to West Clare.
I’m not quite sure how you see yourself as better qualified than I am to give financial advice but nonetheless.
ee
You are completely missing the point here; NAMA doesnt have to be a good deal for the taxpayer to make it the best available option now. There is nothing that can be done NOW that will be a good deal for the taxpayer, nothing. Letting the Banks fail is not a good deal for the taxpayer, since the Banks were guaranteed the taxpayer is covering the losses in one form or other. Im not sure I can explain myself more clearly than that.Your argument may have been valid pre guarantee but its irrelevant now. All the billions that are ploughed into NAMA are not completely dead either. Much of it is in the form of capital for solvency, as the balance sheet is reduced over time the level of funds required here will be reduced; and of course a huge volume of money wil be recovered by the process, nothing like what was given out first day. Clients like Paddy McKillen who is taking a case against being put into Nama has c 800 m of loans which he says are fuly performing and well covered; all this money should be recovered. I could think of at least two other big names that wont lose any money in the process, totalling c 2.5 bn to be recovered.
Its a fucking mess, no doubt about that, but too late now to let the Banks fail. You also stated above that no foreign investors would plough money into INBS and ANglo, well you were also talking about nationilising BOI and AIB who are out there seeking massive capital at the moment, they would be cut off from large volume of support if nationalised.
You are 100% correct to say the banks are effectively nationalized, but this is still a world away from them being fully nationalized in the eyes of investors and regulators. Going the whole hog means the state must incude their liability on the country balance sheet, responsibile for reducndancies of staff etc etc…huge step from now. That is why they have taken equity stakes rather than taking over fully.
I also have a huge objection to the idea that the state would force the Banks to lend into the economy again. Do you not think that state intervention into Banking has caused enough grief? Measures like buying under licence, 100% mortgages, tax relief investment properties and hotels were all government driven/sanctioned measures to get cash lent into the economy and have fucked the country up. I dont trust that any ‘forced’ lending can be done without canvassing and corruption and I dont think that there are all that many business I would put my own money into now, which should be the basis of any lending decision. Lending for the sake of it will just lead to another cycle of defaults down the line. I think there is a huge anomaly between your view of NAMA supporting the market on one hand and your desire for the government to support the market in a different manner on the other hand. Lending into economy will save some jobs but lending into NAMA may save the economy from collapse in the short term.
eh you were part of a banking elite that destroyed the country. Any advice than banking elite gives has to be taken with a *. it is like asking Peter Risdale how to run a football club FFS
good to see you are up early anyway. if you click back this thread enough you will see that the discussion is about classic wastes of money in which I said the whole NAMA experiment including saving the banks will be a collossal waste of money. The alternative I discussed was pre the banks guarantee though I would still query throwing good money after bad into Anglo. A proper national discussion is needed on Anglo and INBS even now. That money is gone and if 10% of it is ever returned we will be doing well. I think it is time for a serious reevaluation of NAMA and this willy nilly approach of pumping borrowed money into the bank’s reserves. effectively bankrupt developers getting huge salaries while 500k are on the dole is the by product of this ah sure everything will eventually be alright approach.
I think the EU made a decision lately re the irish government ‘investment’ into Anglo. It isnt to be treated as an investment but an expense I believe. Think that put’s our national figures back up there with Greece and them.
No not enough state intervention was put into the banks in the first place. The light touch regulation aided by supporting auditors, complicit media, blind public created a mess. I cant believe you are arguing for less state involvement. If the State know exactly the state of the bank reserves which I severely doubt they should be forcing them to lend to viable businesses. The banks have proved they cant run their own organisations properly so they can go and fuck. One of the supposed aims of NAMA which I always thought was a pipedream is that it would enable banks to get lending again.
I think there is better chance of a national recovery through investment in infrastructure projects of strategic importance than throwing billion after borrowed billion into failed organisations. Or else, give huge tax incentives to the likes of Santander to come in and set up a banking operation in the country
Fintan O’Toole takes up my argument today about the continuous pumping of money into Anglo
- Need to save face locks in disastrous Anglo policy
FINTAN O’TOOLE
There is a simple question the Coalition cannot answer – how much money for Anglo is too much?
THERE IS a force in human behaviour that should never be underestimated. It is the need to save face. There is very little that people (and in particular men) will not do in order to avoid the admission that they have made a mistake. Governments, for example, will send soldiers to die for lost causes rather than lose face.
I first understood this properly during the tribunal of inquiry into the infection of hundreds of women with Hepatitis C by the Blood Transfusion Service Board (BTSB). It became clear quite quickly senior figures in the BTSB knew they had made a terrible blunder. They realised they had manufactured anti-D serum from the blood of a woman who had hepatitis. But they kept doing it.
The people who did this were not monsters. But they were high-ranking professionals, used to respect and filled, as a consequence, with self-regard. So, even in the face of the certain knowledge that they were infecting hundreds of women with a potentially fatal disease, they simply carried on.
Within the bubble of an institutional culture, it was easier to keep going and pretend nothing had happened than it was to own up and face disgrace. And, perversely, the worse things got – the more women got infected – the more important it was to say nothing.
It is now completely clear that, in their own terms, the Government and the Department of Finance made a horrendous mistake when they extended an absolute guarantee to the debts of Anglo Irish Bank in September 2008. I stress “in their own terms”. This is not a question about what I or others of that decision felt to be right or wrong. It is about what they themselves thought they were doing.
What they thought they were doing was making a dramatic, once-off intervention to avert the collapse of banks that were fundamentally sound.
They acted on four basic assumptions.
Firstly, the blanket guarantee would have no real cost to the exchequer. (Brian Lenihan: “No cost is expected to arise for the State other than in respect of the cost of administering the arrangement.”) Secondly, the banks, including Anglo, had problems with liquidity but were essentially solvent. (Kevin Cardiff, secretary general of the Department of Finance, last week: “Liquidity apart, Anglo Irish Bank was regarded as it stood at that point as being able to meet its obligations.”) Thirdly, it was assumed actual losses at Anglo Irish could be as high as €8.5 billion.
Fourthly, the cost of recapitalising the banks to solve the liquidity problems would be up to €10 billion. (Brian Lenihan, December 2008: “A recapitalisation programme for credit institutions in Ireland of up to €10 billion.”)
These assumptions were catastrophically mistaken. Far from having no cost, ours has turned out to be, per capita, the most expensive bank rescue in global history.
The banks were not solvent. Losses at Anglo were not €8.5 billion – they could be as high as €32 billion. And the recapitalisation programme will cost, on the most optimistic scenario, at least three times the imagined €10 billion limit.
These mistakes were pretty stupid ones. A competent government would have had much better information on which to base such decisions.
A properly sceptical government (one that was not habituated to giving banks whatever they wanted) would have noticed that the markets didn’t believe that the banks were fundamentally sound (hence the collapse in their share prices). And enough was known about the shenanigans at Anglo to alert any intelligent observer to its probable toxicity.
Stupid though the assumptions were, however, they were almost certainly genuine. The Government and the department truly believed the cost of the policy decisions they were making would be horrendous but limited – somewhere around €10 billion. They also believed most of that money would eventually come back to the State because it was an investment in essentially solvent banks.
Now, the Government is like a young man who has taken a girl he is trying to impress to a fancy restaurant. He knew it would be pricey. He opens the menu to find it is 10 times more expensive than he thought.
Paying for the meal will max out all his credit cards. He should get up and walk away from the table. But he can’t bear the humiliation, so he smiles and orders a bottle of champagne as well.
The difference, of course, is that it is the rest of us who are paying so that Brian Cowen, Brian Lenihan and the mandarins don’t have to admit they screwed up. There is a simple question that the Government cannot answer – how much money for Anglo is too much? It can’t answer that because we have gone way beyond logic into the irrational realms of face-saving. Once you’re in that territory, no step is a step too far
bit economic with the truth here dan?
the targets for lending in AIB and BoI are more or less what we put in as part of the recap deal
they’ll be backed by the govt, removing the risk to the bank (what was that about govt intervention in banking?), similar to the SLS scheme in the UK, which is what we should have done in the first place. (when Darling rang Lenihan after the guarantee to tell him cop the fcuk on, I honestly found myself wishing we were still ruled by the brits)
basically they’re lending the money we gave them, to SMEs (who’re probably providing a fair chunk of the initial outlay in the form of tax) and we’re underwriting the deal. nice work for the bank if you can get it. did WTB mention something about risk?
and let’s not forget we wouldn’t be recapitalising at all if lenny ran with his original notion of a “long-term economic value” for the NAMA-bound assets. NAMA and the bank recaps was a zero-sum game. at least with the recaps we got some sort of return (even if it is only propping up the share price)
If FF could have handed over the lot for a few dodgy loans and half-built apartments, they would have.
if the equity stake in the banks ever makes a return, it’s the EU we can thank for it.
(and if, as seems likely, AIB fail to raise 7bn by year-end, will our existing stake be efectively wiped out once it’s nationalised?)
The HSE have spent over €120,000,000 on TAXIS over the past 4 years.
Roughly €29m per annum :o
Christ :blink:
One Hundred And Twenty Million Euros :blink:
Taxis are dear
The meter must have been left ticking over for the year.
The above cost actually excludes the cost of chartered bus services over the same period, which runs at another €38 million.
FFS shouldn’t people pay for their own shagging taxis? 
Where the fcuk are these people going to?
That is a lot of cola bottles.
Ballinahinch
For example if there was a private consultant with a patient in a hospital in Limerick, they might book at taxi at the HSEs cost to send files out to his private practice. Not even a person but files!!
I know that in the maternity in limerick when they need a bloodtest done, the sample is transferred to the lab in the regional via taxi. That could be 10 or 20 runs a day at a tenner a pop.
29 million on taxis per annum, would it not be more sensible to hire 580 full time drivers at a very generous 50k a year each and divvy them up between the health service? Or in these recessionary times I’m sure you’d get takers at 30k a year and have almost 1000 drivers at your disposal round the clock? 1000 lads with clean licences and Garda clearance off the live register at the drop of a hat for no cost in real terms. Naive perhaps.