Another McWilliams nuggest yesterday was that Germany’s war reparations in 1918 were 6k Euro per citizen in today’s money. Ireland’s debt is 14k! And Germany only paid off the last installments recently. It is inevitable that there will have to be write offs of some of the debts be they Irish, Greek or Portugese. The Eurocrats fear is that it will start an avalanche of write offs.
This is some fairly depressing shit.
We are basically fucked whatever we do and we’ve just got to hope some bigger player comes falling down with us?
hope someone falls down before us would be better
(worse for the greeks, but better for us)
Wouldn’t be that depressed Runt. As a nation we just need to calm the fuck down and stop talking about doing crazy shit. We are not the first country to get into a mess like this and we won’t be the last.
Peak oil is clearly the black swan
No Sid by definition it’s not. We know about peak oil therefore it can’t be a black swan.
Unless of course that was some witty banter. In which case - bravo.
Do we? I don’t think we do at all.
Eddie Hobbs knows about peak oil.
It’s as sure to happen as people are to get a return on their investments in his property company.
Well Ciaran Maguire of the Ciaran Maguire group says that investors will get “guaranteed returns” on property in the Cape Verde islands and I for one have no reason to doubt him.
Long term. The ECB will borrow all our funds for us at a low rate and we will borrow from them at a premium. We won’t be in the market for debt again for a very long time if ever. The only sustainable outcome for us is if debtors take EU risk rather than Ireland risk. There will ultimately be a loss of sovereignty with that but that is where we are headed
Funny I was searching on the net the other day to see what exactly the Krauts had to pay after World War I and in present terms it was about the same as the figure we’re bandying about as to what we’ll owe when this shit storm is over. This was Germany…an industrial power.
We can take heart that it all worked out ok for Germany though, besides the small matters of hyper-inflation, a number of bloody uprisings from the right and left, the eventual rise of the right and the destruction of Western Europe and the division of the continent for 50 years!
An appropriate analogy here would be to view Ireland as the flash son who pissed off all of his siblings swanning around in a Range Rover with his bottle blonde wife buying up properties and enraging them all at family dinners by telling them all how easy it was and how many square feet their house was.
Germany was more in the mould of the elder brother who worked on the public sector and saved every penny.
The party ended, the bank wanted it’s money back. The parents had to mortgage the house to keep the flash son out of bankruptcy. The money was paid back to the bank and the son swore to his parents that he’d give them back every penny. They and he knew that this wasn’t going to happen. The siblings are a bit pissed off because your man still has the Range Rover and their inheritance has gone.
The parents are the ECB.
Yes, but does that story not end with us getting a fattened calf and a big feast?
The older brother gave him the money too as he believed in his bullshit business ideas. As a result the older brother should also take the fall for investing in a pyramid scheme.
Yes may be he talked the brother into parting with some of the life savings to go into a killer deal in Termonfeckin
To see how this works out in the end check out the classic Steve Martin movie Parenthood
This is what happens when you mark somebodys card
This one is alright - for a Brit.
The Chairperson of the European Parliament’s influential Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee has said she is outraged by the conditions imposed on Ireland regarding the interest rate on its EU loans.
British MEP Sharon Bowles said Ireland had the recipe to respond to the economic and banking crisis but is being treated harshly by its EU partners.
She said Ireland had taken ‘one for the team’ by bailing out banks as demanded by the ECB, adding she could see no reason why lending countries should turn a 3% profit.
'A lower interest rate would mean a faster recovery, which is surely in the interests of the EU and the ECB as well as Ireland.
‘Of the three countries in programs, Ireland is performing best in class, so to suggest corporation tax measures in return for an interest rate reduction is simply spiteful.’
Ms Bowles also called for a medium-term financing facility for Irish banks.
‘Ireland would be helped if the ECB could give firmer commitment to medium term funding rather than repeated rollovers every 14 days,’ she said.
‘Such measures would help prevent contagion from uncertainty about Greece.’
Ms Bowles was speaking as the committee concluded a fact-finding mission to Dublin.
All part of Britain’s cunning plan to get Paddy onside to help block some French/German driven EU initiatives
Surprised you still see the European flag flying outside public buildings in this country to be honest. Our ‘friends’ are happy to nail us to the cross with penal interest rates, Sarkozy wants to blackmail us, while the European central bank did nothing to control Irish bank lending during the boom as is a major shareholder in the blame for this disaster. If Europe needs another referendum passed by us in the next few years can anyone see it passing? Remember how Europe felt our initial rejection of Lisbon was a kick in the teeth? What do they call their treatment of us now? Of course the referendum was forced on us again until we gave them the right result. The more I see of these odious kunts the less I like them.