Will an Irish bank be taken over do ye think or worse nationalised? Tony Gregory may get his way in the end?
Well, I’m far from being an expert in this but up to a few weeks ago, I would have said there wasn’t much possibility of an Irish bank being taken over as banks across the board didn’t have the capital to acquire competitors. But the way things are going Anglo shares will probably be about 20 cent a pop tomorrow after lunch! At such an incredibly low price, they’ll then be ripe for acquisition.
Lads, could one of you explain what it means when a bank is nationalised? Does the Government take it over?
Sean Quinn is not looking too shrewd at this stage in the play, Bandage.
Wonder about that myself Mac, would be weird to have the government with their hands on the tiller of a major high street bank. I suppose at least the interest and charges they are charging would theoretically revert to the people as opposed into the arse pocket of the broad-shouldered shareholder. A bit like the nationalisation of the M50 toll plaza.
Twould be weird alright but they used to own Irish Life and all they’ll realistically do is just maintain a conservative strategy for a while and try and get deposits in and try and ride out the storm I presume.
Think TFK should make a play for Anglo.
If this thing in the US gets agreed one then the prices should all shoot back up again tomorrow?
Or are any of the Irish banks gonna go to the wall? When you see something serious happening Fortis like what happened over the weekend it makes you realise how real some of this shit is.
Maybe it is a good time to be a civil servant 
[quote=“Mac”]If this thing in the US gets agreed one then the prices should all shoot back up again tomorrow?
Or are any of the Irish banks gonna go to the wall? When you see something serious happening Fortis like what happened over the weekend it makes you realise how real some of this shit is.
Maybe it is a good time to be a civil servant ;)[/quote]
I’m not sure the US thing will make much difference. Reckon it’s fairly certain that it will get voted through but the contents of the deal are known now and it doesn’t seem to make much difference because there’s still no credit confidence.
There was lots of talk last week about how well the ISEQ did on the back of some positive noises from the US and the Irish govt guarantee scheme but some of that was probably just attributed to the strong takeover rumours about BOI/IL&P/Anglo that were doing the rounds.
Any jobs going?
I reckon NO ONE has a clue which way things are going to go. Tossing a coin would seem as good an indicator as anything else.
Its a funny oul game.
The crowd I work for provide payment systems into banks. There’s a mandated compliance change coming from the EU around a thing call SEPA that means that all banks in the Euro area will have to make changes to their payment systems. Its a huge opportunity for an Irish software company to be in as no-one else has what we have and the majority of the major banks in the Europe have spoken with us in detail with 2 deals already done and some close to signing.
The worry I’d have is that the lads in Brussels will see what a dire state some of the banks will be in and push back the deadline (currently Nov 2009) which would fuck us over and leave us hanging until banks have money to spend.
As SS** says NO ONE knows how this is going to turn out. Thoughts of facing into a wet dreery winter with all this shite going on - could you blame people for heading to other countries?
But other countries have this shite too.
US House of Representatives rejected the bail-out plan this evening.
Rocko, being a technical whizz kid, I reckon you should ring up Anglo tomorrow and record the conversation and stick it up here. Basically, ask to speak to a manager and when you get through, say you have 100 hidden in wardrobe at home and want to make an offer for the company. See what (s)he says then.
Mac, best of luck with the Single Euro(pean) Payments Area project.
It’s all down to the fact that the bankers are just glorified gamblers, they are bound to lose at some stage, same thing happened many moons ago when the punt had to be devalued
[quote=“Bandage”]Rocko, being a technical whizz kid, I reckon you should ring up Anglo tomorrow and record the conversation and stick it up here. Basically, ask to speak to a manager and when you get through, say you have 100 hidden in wardrobe at home and want to make an offer for the company. See what (s)he says then.
.[/quote]
i thought that rock has an innate fear of phone calls bandage…
Good little summary on why the bailout was rejected.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitol-briefing/2008/09/why_the_bailout_bill_failed.html
Why the Bailout Bill Failed
So how could a major bill described by the president and both parties’ leaders as critical to the well-being of the nation’s – and the world’s – economy go down to defeat?
There are no easy answers here, as the House’s stunning defeat moments ago of the financial bailout legislation is putting us into seemingly uncharted territory. But while the final tally, with 133 Republicans and 95 Democrats voting no, was a surprise – all morning, Hill sources were predicting narrow passage – the signs were there that the measure was in trouble:
- Poor Salesmanship. Did you know that the general consensus is now that this bill will not cost $700 billion? If you didn’t, it’s because the bill’s proponents did a poor marketing job. From the start, the Bush administration did not do enough to emphasize the point that taxpayers would get at least some of the money back, and that gigantic price tag got stuck in the head of the public (and the media).
The administration was also too eager and ambitious with its initial proposal, alienating many lawmakers right from the start by seeming to ask for the moon – give us everything we want, with no oversight. This White House has long played political hardball, but this was not the time for hardball. This was the time for begging. The administration also let the “bailout” label stick to the package right from the start. By the time President Bush started calling it a “rescue” measure, it was too late.
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Vulnerables Scared. If you have a difficult reelection race, what was your motivation to vote for this bill? “I voted in favor of a bill that I didn’t really like, because I had no choice,” doesn’t make for a particularly snappy campaign slogan. “I stood up to my party and Wall Street,” sounds much better. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) both made the argument that lawmakers needed to rise to the occasion and not think of their own political futures. But members of Congress ALWAYS think of their political futures. It’s much easier to talk of sacrifice for the greater good when you’re going to get reelected with 70 percent of the vote, like nearly every leader on both sides of the aisle will.
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No Center of Gravity. Who’s running Washington right now? Bush is the lamest of lame ducks, with a minuscule approval rating and no clout or political protection left to offer. Bush and Vice President Cheney were reportedly making calls to wavering Republicans right to the end; obviously that didn’t do the trick. Barack Obama and John McCain both supposedly support the bill, but neither of them has been exactly wholehearted in their backing, and there haven’t been any reports of either candidate calling members of their own party to lobby.
House leaders, meanwhile, did support the bill and did whip it. But this wasn’t a party-loyalty vote; lawmakers were asked to vote yes, but they weren’t threatened. They (probably) weren’t bribed. Add all that up, and you had a power vacuum.
- Ideological Problems. The simplest explanation of all for the loss was that a lot of members just didn’t like the bill. Capitol Briefing outlined last week all the reasons why House conservatives balked at the initial proposal, and the basic point still stands: A massive expenditure of taxpayer funds and intervention in the free market, combined with tough new regulations, simply offended too many conservatives’ most basic principles. And Republicans, being in the minority, feel no responsibility to govern. They calculated that the bill’s failure will be blamed on Bush (so what?) and the majority Democrats.
On the liberal end of the spectrum, most members believe this really does represent a “bailout” of Wall Street and a power grab by the Bush administration, and that the current crisis vindicates their longtime warnings that the financial system was riven by greed and insufficient regulation. For those members, the final package didn’t have nearly enough help for struggling homeowners.
- Partisanship? House Republican leaders gave a press conference right after the vote, and they have strongly suggested that Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) floor speech toward the end of the debate was at least partly to blame for the loss. “I do believe we would have gotten there had the Speaker not made this partisan speech on the floor of the house,” Boehner said.
It’s too early to know whether Pelosi’s speech, which laid much of the blame for the whole financial crisis at the foot of the Bush administration, really made much of a difference. But if several House Republicans actually did switch their votes on a momentous piece of legislation just because they were irritated by a speech, what does that say about them? As Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) mockingly characterized the GOP’s argument: “Somebody hurt my feelings, so I’m going to punish the country.”
It’s possible despite weeks of warnings, and a stock market that is cratering as we speak, that a lot of members still aren’t taking any of this seriously enough. And that, ultimately, may be the real reason for today’s vote.
All ye negative bastards - we’re flying high today after the government guaranteed all bank borrowings and unlimited deposits (at commercial terms).
Anglo Irish Bank is up 49%, Irish Life and Permanent up 40%, Bank of Ireland up 22% and AIB up 14%.
The government pulled a great 1 there guaranteeing the banks, what happens if the banks go bust does that mean that they’ll bring the government with them, wait it’s just for 2 years, election in 18 months everybody, you heard it here first
Think it’s a decent move if only for the reason that it’s pre-emptive. Irish economy is too small to cope with a Lehman or even the threat of it so this gives us a bit of security. Commercial rate is crucial though, if the govt is required as a backer then the taxpayer should be making money out of it.
We are such small fries it’s not even funny, we aren’t even a blip on Wall Street, saing that I’d say there’s a lot of bankers blowing a sigh of relief this morning
Good move for the banks but what about people left payign 40 year mortgages on properties that are worth two thirds of what they paid for them? What is the Government going to do for that section of society?
I remember having a discussion with a friend of mine (who happens to be an accountant) who was just after buying a house on a 35 year 100% mortgage (about 2.5 years ago now), he was smuggling drink into the pub cause she couldn’t afford to drink, but was happy to have a house. Speaking to her at the weekend she was grand so I hopped it off her and she said “sure I don’t want to move so what difference does it make?”