A glimpse over the rim of Ireland’s financial inferno…
Excellent piece in today’s Irish Times on the Irish bank deal from Morgan Kelly, who gives us a quick view of what it might look like when if the Irish state tips towards a state of state bankcrupcy [can that happen? - Ed]. Oh, yes. You don’t go to court, if the country defaults government will have to pay for nearly everthing itself on a dwindling tax take, government bondholders (ie pension funds and ordinary citizens) will all be f*&%ed, regardless of what the Supreme Court might have to say about it… [So how come the Republic's in such peril? - Ed]… Well, it might not be… Morgan takes up the story below the fold…
…imagine that you are a bank manager and somebody that we will call Brian (not his real name) comes in looking for a loan.Brian’s income is €30,000 and he would like to borrow €20,000 to cover living expenses. This sounds like a lot in these nervous times but, because Brian is not carrying much debt, you think you might lend to him.
However, Brian then lets it slip that, because his income is falling sharply, he will need to borrow at least as much each year for the foreseeable future. He also admits that, late one night and for what seemed like good reasons at the time, he somehow agreed to insure the gambling losses of some “banks”.
Brian has no idea how large these losses might be, but is starting to fear that they might be substantial. At this stage, you realise that Brian is on a trajectory into bankruptcy and show him the door.
The devil in this case lies not in Ireland’s public debt, but in the government’s foolish audicious cunning plan to guarantee the losses of the Irish banks:
The Government has not updated its estimate of losses since Brian Lenihan’s boast that the liability guarantee was “the cheapest bailout in the world so far”, an assurance that already ranks in the annals of supreme political irony alongside Neville Chamberlain’s “peace in our time”.
According to Kelly, the equation is brutally simple:
The ability of the State to continue funding itself ultimately depends on the size of these bad debts. If they are of the order of €10ր20 billion, we will survive. If they are of the order of €50-€60 billion, we are sunk.
And how did we get here? Lax regulation is not just an Irish disease. Right across the western world, the banks and international financial houses lobbied for it hard, sometimes making sub rosa threats to political parties and leaders that they would redirect their resources elsewhere without a lowering of base standards.
According to Fintan O’Toole, Ireland under Fianna Fail bought the line hook line and sinker:
At the IFSC annual lunch in December 2005, Micheál Martin noted the “unhappiness in the business sector at the degree and extent of obligations imposed by directors’ compliance statement obligations” and boasted that he was changing these regulations to ensure the law would be “less prescriptive about the methods a company uses to review its compliance procedures, and in not requiring review of the compliance statement by an external auditor”.
There was a concerted campaign to silence calls for tighter regulation. Charlie McCreevy urged the Financial Regulator: “Don’t try to protect everyone from every possible accident . . . And leave industry with the space to breathe and investors with the freedom to learn from their mistakes.” He actually boasted of how “Many of us in this room are from the generations that had the luck to grow up before governments got working and lawyers got rich on regulating our lives. We were part of the ‘unregulated generation’ – the generation that has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem-solvers and inventors.”
In effect, Fianna Fail took a gamble on the goodwill of the financial services industry. Last October it went in deep, before it knew just how deep a hole their mates in the banks had dug for them and the whole public sector. Back then Noel Whelan probably reflected government expectations that:
…if the insurance given to the banking system is not called upon, the Government finances will turn a substantial profit from the levy charged for the guarantee. Even if difficulties arise and some of the guarantee scheme is drawn down, the Government is determined that those costs will be borne by the wider banking sector rather than the taxpayer.
That was clearly very wide of the mark. The government seems to have mixed bad with good without asking the tough questions. Hardly surprising since the banks had all gotten used to being in the bully place. Morgan Kelly sees the worst looming:
To see what would happen to Ireland if foreign lenders suddenly pull the plug, we only need to look at what happened in Latvia last December. We would be forced to seek an international bailout, with the International Monetary Fund and European Union playing bad cop and good cop. We could expect cuts of one-quarter to one-third in public sector wages and social welfare benefits, and draconian tax rises to bring the deficit back to around 5 per cent of national income in two years.
There is actually a worse scenario where international bond markets suffer a general panic, like 1998. Not only does Ireland gets torpedoed, but also Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain and Austria. The IMF and EU simply would not have the resources to bail out so many economies and we would be entirely on our own.
In circumstances where the Government could not even pay public sector salaries, the bank guarantee would immediately become worthless and we would see an uncontrollable run on all the Irish banks.
This won’t be like previous recessions. If the stimulus packages elsewhere don’t work (the Republic has already committed its future earnings to covering the banks come what may…), we are heading for a very painful reversal of the globalisation process. Unlike the 1980s, there is simply no place to escape to. As my colleague at River Path, David Steven noted in Tokyo recently: “be ready for the backlash – people are angry and rightfully so, but that may well lead us down some populist blind alleys.”
In which case, what Ireland needs right now is an opposition with a steady eye and a steady nerve.
Kensei
I don’t think I was condescending to you. I decided to take a deliberately provocative line with Dr. Kildare, so that he would respond in detail and put down his thinking. (In my defence his blatant shilling in the current climate was also provocative).
I take it you find the term financially innumerate offensive. Maybe it is, but I find most people don’t think about things like what interest rates will be when teaser rates end, and the loss of interest on money you would otherwise have on deposit. I’ve had this debate many, many times – and find some people are reluctant to even agknowledge these things are important.
I accept it gives Dr. Kildare absolutely no room to back down, but given the bullish position he started in – I don’t think it was ever likely he would anyway.
Kensei -
Not all 25 year olds want to rent a room., or live in a space that is just perfect. Most people want to live somewhere bigger than their needs given the choice- few spare bedrooms, big bathroom, garden
True, some people will also just want to own their own place – but we shouldn’t kid them that it is in their financial best interests to purchase now. If you have other strong reasons to buy go ahead, but I wouldn’t recommend doing it because you think you’ll be better off.
Nice rant there Mack!
Who’s encouraging people to buy property? What I said was there is evidence that first time buyers are putting their head over the parapet again. I was surprised to hear this myself but it was on RTE radio1 yesterday morning. They interviewed several first time buyers who are thinking of buying. Maybe RTE are in some giant conspiracy with the banks, developers and the Government?
The Halifax fixed rate will revert to their standard variable rate, “currently at 3.20% APR”, after 31st May 2011 – this is straight off their web site.
You’re saying we’re entering a period of prolonged deflation or interest rates will sky rocket. What a gift you have, you’re able to see into the future!
Dr Kildare
That interest rate does look pretty good, but it’s still cheaper to rent than to buy at the minute. And yes the property industry will be making attempts to sell properties including PR in the media – their survival depends on it.
You’re saying we’re entering a period of prolonged deflation or interest rates will sky rocket. What a gift you have, you’re able to see into the future!
House prices have been falling for 2 years. 36,000 people were made redundant in January. Monthly CPI has been negative since September. The government is cutting spending and raising taxes into a recession. The ISEQ is 75% of it’s peak. The Irish banks are insolvent, bad loans are increasing all the time. All of this is deflationary.
The Bank of England voted unaminously to print money yesterday, the Federal Reserve and Bank of Japan are doing the same. The ECB have so far refused to drop interest rates to near zero, because that leaves only Quantitive Easing as an option for them. The German finance minister said they won’t let a Eurozone country fail, with Austria, Ireland and the PIGs on the brink – with Eastern Europe faltering, with the IMF out of money for more bailouts, just where do you think that money would come from? Printing money normally causes inflation, one way to try and prevent that happening is to raise interest rates. Investors will demand higher interest rates on their bonds anyway in an inflationary environment..
Apologies for being late to this interesting somewhat terrifying thread
Dave’s ‘recurring ‘ thesis that somehow Ireland would have escaped the current crash if we were not in the Euro zone and Ireland had a stand alone currency sch as Iceland or Britain or Russia is simplistic , naive and at this point irrelevant.
What matters is not Ireland or Britain but the entire world economy and how it responds to the current ‘stimuli’ which are being pushed forward by all the ‘advanced ‘ economies i.e the USA , Germany , UK , France , Japan etc .
So far the measures taken in the USA have not born fruit although there are a few ‘green ‘ shoots emerging . Bush’s $ 500 tax rebate achieved nothing and Obama’s rescue plan will not be enough on it’s own . It will probably take a temporary ‘nationalisation’ of the American banking system backed up by similar policies elsewhere for the world economic system to ‘reboot’as it were. The Germans are close to bank nationalisation as well as bailing out Poland , Hungary and others from currency collapse . These countries have escaped from ‘Communism ‘ only to be flung back into chaos by the ‘international financial terrorists ‘ emanating from Wall St and the ‘shadow banking’ con men .
Lack of regulations in the ‘shadow banking ‘ sector was the bottom card on which the whole financial services house of cards was built . We read of another Madoff like financial services criminal namely one Stanford of Texas who has ‘made off ‘ with a miserly 8 billion dollars only , and is now in ‘hiding ‘ . Performance standards are obviously slipping in the world of financial services con men 
Perhaps there’s nothing left to steal ?)
Just as well Ireland is in the Euro. When the proverbial shit hits the fan because of some crisis or other in the financial world and there have been several all around the world since the advent of globalisation and it’s attendant financial speculators from the 1980′s onwards , it makes sense to belong to a ‘world ‘ currrency . The lesson learned for all of the smaller and indeed for many of the larger emerging economies seems to be that you ‘devalue ‘ at your peril . Britain got away with it in 1990 under John Major so too did Australia . The Indonesians , Malaysians , Argentinians , Brazilians and other’s didn’t DESPITE following the IMF recommendations. It’s not clear that Britain would get away with so easily with another ‘official ‘ devaluation at this time it again . Once the rot starts the ‘investor’ world can , will, and has brought about the swift devaluation of any currency that is ‘prey’ . Even the IMF is powerless once the pack ‘attack ‘
It will take a new ‘world ‘ economic order to bring the ‘shadow banking ‘ under regulation in order to forestall similar crises in the future.
As for Ireland we are far better off hanging with the Euro . Our property bubble bust was going to happen anyway. What Ireland and indeed what the world MISSED and STILL MISSES was and is the carnage which the unregulated shadow banking sector could and did wreak on all of the world’s economies . Even now the damage is still emerging and it appears that nothing less than a world wide ‘nationalisation ‘ of banking systems even if only temporary will be needed . International financial ‘terrorism ‘ has proved itself capable of greater destructive force than anything Al Quaeda could ever have dreamed of.
1930′s come again ? Paul Krugman in his latest ‘The Return of Depression Era Economics ‘ seems to hint that a return to the 1930′s if still unlikely is not closed out.
Greenflag
That was a good read – I thought I recognised it’s premise throughout your post! (Except that Krugman was opposed to a world currency).
Mack,
while I am for the most part with you on the whole house buying front, I don’t know if Japan is a good example.
If I was Japanese and had decided to put my money in stocks instead in 1989 I’d be 70% down rather than the 50% in property.
Also, buying property isn’t always just about arithmetic. It’s about security, being able to put a nail in a wall, nesting etc. etc.
People are willing to pay more for that “sense” of ownership/security.
The problems only really start when you begin thinking of property primarily as an asset rather than a home.
The majority of housebuyers in the last decade thought of their house as an asset first and home second. They might not want to admit this but they did.
If they had thought of it as a home, they would have rented because the differentials were so huge. They are all paying the price now.
George
I agree with pretty much all you say.
It’s true an investor in Japan would have been better of in a Japanese property fund than a Japanese stock fund. They’d have been even better off in cash – or if they’d had a diversified stock portofolio (i.e. Global stocks) they’d probably be up significantly since then. Also most people invest in stocks out of earned cash, while property investors use leverage. In the example above if our Stock investor piled all his money into a Topix tracker he’d be down on the amount he put in, the property investor would have lost a good bit more money than he had!
Also even Japanese stocks pay dividends, if they were reinvested (or kept on deposit), over the long term even he still could come out ahead of even a cash-only property investor (particularly as investors in individual properties take on significantly more risk, than diversified investors).
George,
‘The problems only really start when you begin thinking of property primarily as an asset rather than a home. ‘
YOU ??? The entire banking /building society /financial services sector has owed it’s increasing status /role /power in the Anglosphere countries over the past several decades due to this way of ‘thinking ‘ . Had you gone into any bank over the past few years and asked to borrow 200,000 to buy some shares of a promising high tech company or purchase a failing business to turn it around or a large house -you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out which ‘loan ‘ proposal the bank would actually even bother to look at ?
Ah yes GF, Madoff and Stanford, two crooks who were massive contributors to the US Democrat Party, and as we see with Obama’s cabinet choices, paying taxes isn’t a huge priority among senior Democrats.
Yet oddly you seem to believe that fiscal conservatives are the problem.
Strange that.
Mack ,
‘that Krugman was opposed to a world currency).’
Because of the immense practical problems of aligning the world’s economies on such a basis . But there is scope for ‘regional’ currencies where the politics allow it e.g Euro-land and later perhaps in South America and Africa . Current economic conditions have shown that small stand alone currencies are ‘prey’ to international currency speculators ,regardless of the underlying strength of their economies . Krugman goes to great lengths to explain how that actually happened in practice in countries as disaparate as the UK , Argentina , Mexico , Chile etc .
Until such time as these ‘international financial pirates’ are brought under control or somehow become part of a responsible international monetary system these kind of crises will continually recur with ramifications for both the future of affected countries and future of ‘democracy’ as a political model worth ‘aping ‘?
As I write I read the Super Neo Conservative Alan Greenspan former USA Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank has now moved to the ranks of those calling for ‘nationalisation ‘ of the American banking system in order to reboot world financial stability ? He is also being ‘joined ‘ by some Republican Governors I kid you not . Greenspan’s words included ‘this kind of thing (crisis) happens once every 100 years or so ‘? Well lets hope 2014 is not a repeat of 1914
While it’s not practical to have at this point a world currency the fact is that without extra regulation and even more cooperation between the worlds largest economies there will be no escape from this debacle or if there is an escape without such cooperation such escape will prove temporary . Whatever the outcome the future for stand alone ‘sovereign ‘ currencies of the type Dave favours looks bleak -
Right now if the Chinese sold off their trillion dollars worth of support for the dollar the latter currency would collapse overnight but so too would the Chinese economy . However by chipping away or transferring their long term loans to the USA to short term the Chinese and others will be able to influence USA foreign policy and economy in a way which Americans may yet come to rue . This is just dilemma of many to which the globalisation of international finance has led. Just as the British , Irish & American Governments can’t allow any one of their large banks to collapse entirely neither can any of the major or minor economies afford to see their main trading partners go belly up .
The world’s economies are now even more interdependent than ever before in history . The world’s political and financial regulations authorities have not only not caught up with but have in the past two decades stopped even trying to catch up and like lemmings just followed the rampant heard following the latest financial services/shadow banking con job ‘over ‘ the edge
And it’s not as if it never happened before although perhaps not on the present scale . Neither China nor Brazil nor Mexico nor Russia were part of the world economy in 1930 . Nowadays they are and will be an increasing part of it whenever it is ‘rebooted ‘ assuming it will be of course ?
‘and as we see with Obama’s cabinet choices, paying taxes isn’t a huge priority among senior Democrats.’
The Republican Vice Presidential Nominee is as i write also in ‘unpaid taxes ‘ water . The only solution to this kind of corruption temptation among the avaricious classes is to have the IRS flag publicly any elected politician in the House or Senate who is either behind his/her tax payments by 3 months say . Add in mandatoy jail sentences of 10 yeas with no paroe for convicted politicians of the ilk of the 18 Republicans forced into resignation suring the last Republican term of government and you might I say might get an increase in ethical standards .
‘you seem to believe that fiscal conservatives are the problem.’
Not fiscal conservatives per se – fiscal Neo Conservatives who applied the policy of little or absolutely no regulation to the ‘shadow banking ‘ sector and who thus by reason of stupid ideology allowed this sector to virtually singlehandedly destoy the world’s economies
For the record it has been revealed that Madoff as well as disembowelling Jewish Charities and many in the entertainment sector has also disinherited the Catholic ‘Redemptorist’ Order of their investments .
At the same time as Madoof was throwing money at the Democrats as donations he was also throwing money at other organisations and charities that he later ‘disembowelled ‘
Such greed is of course pathological and there must be many a research psychologist out there who would love to analyse Madoff’s motivations ?
However if you are still upset about Madoff I encourage to purchase one of the new Madoff ‘dolls ‘ now hittig the market . While made of resin the doll comes in a box supplied with an accompanying hammer . The Madoff doll is suitably attired in satanic dress and breaks into pieces when attacked by the hammer .
The Australian who came up with the idea retails it at 100 dollars approx
We do not know as yet whether this ‘item ‘ will take off with those who have lost millions nor whether the business was financed by Madoff himself . But it may provide temporary psychological relief and may prove less costly than numerous visits to the pub 
?
Your problem, Greenie, is a reverse of not being able to see the wood for the trees in that you can’t see the trees for the wood.
Property shilling
–>A friend recieved today
Just a catch up to see how you are getting on, regarding your mortgage.
You attended one of our First Time buyer’s seminars in XXXXXX.
As you know the Irish banks were recently recapitalised which means that
there is more money available for lending.
Also with the low interest rates and the reduction in house/apartment,
prices now is a good time to be looking for a mortgage as a first time
buyer.
Let me know if there is anything we can do to assist you with this
matter or any other financial issue.
My direct dial is below. Looking forward to hearing from you.
Kind Regards
————–
Jeebus, business as usual, wha? Credit crunch be damned. This is the black hole our tax Euros are into!
Misuse of power by politicians led us into this mess. Therefore we need to give more power to politicians.
Removal of sovereignty from states allows flawed practices and policies to infect a multiplicity of states. Therefore we need to remove the remaining firewalls of national sovereignty and allow future infections to infect to all of states.
Private sector borrowing aimed at economic expansion has created a mountain of debt, preventing the private sector from borrowing more and causing a dramatic reverse of the expansion. Therefore we need to transfer the borrowing from the private sector to the public sector so that our debt-felled economic expansion policies can continue until the public sector cannot borrow either.
That’s the ‘logic’ that drives these muppets.
Dave ,
‘Your problem, Greenie, is a reverse of not being able to see the wood for the trees in that you can’t see the trees for the wood.’
And your problem Dave is that chip on your shoulder . If you look up from the chip you’ll see even more wood.
According to new US Attorney Holder messrs Madoff and Stanford may be just a couple of trees in the forest of thieves who have thrived on the lack of regulations in the shadow banking sector which was so much favoured by previous US administrations since the 1980′s and in particular since 1999. And today another name is added with the revelations of the Bank of Medici and it’s Madoffian lacky a lady named Kohn (you can read all about it on Bloomberg ). Venezuela has had to take over a ‘Stanford ‘ bank and Antigua the Commonwealth island nation that knighted Stanford has had a run on financial institutions that are connected with Stanford .
It’s beginning to look as if the inherent stupidity of the neo conservatives and their gang of investment theives is ‘genetic ‘ and beyond redemption. Nothing for it but to bring out the guillotine for this lot . If they have a problem hiring somebody to drop the blade I’m available at short notice
.
‘Removal of sovereignty from states allows flawed practices and policies to infect a multiplicity of states’.
More of the same shite . This ‘financial’ crisis originated not in the EU but in the USA and more particularly in the USA’s shadow banking sector from which it spread into the ‘regulated ‘ banking sector and overseas into the international banking system infecting banks right across the world regardless of whether these countries had or had not a property ‘bubble ‘.
It may have escaped Dave’s notice but the property ‘bubble ‘ plus credit crunch plus spiralling debt happened also in the USA which is from what we read one of the most supposedly if not the most ‘sovereign ‘ state on the planet ?
Sonja Kohn, who used her relationship with Bernard Madoff to help build a Vienna private bank, was doing what she is known for at a Dec. 9 reception in Zurich: promoting her investment record. Swiss investment adviser Hans Kaufmann liked what he heard over goulash soup.
“We agreed to meet in Vienna soon as I wanted to know more,” said Kaufmann, founder of Kaufmann Research AG in Wettswil am Albis near Zurich. He says he was impressed that Kohn reported investment gains during a year in which he was proud to keep losses to 7 percent.
The meeting never happened. Two days later, Madoff was arrested in New York for allegedly running the biggest Ponzi scheme in history. Kohn’s Bank Medici AG managed and distributed funds that had $3.2 billion of client money with him. She says she was a victim of a “fraud that destroyed lives, life savings and companies.”
Bank Medici funneled the most money of any firm in Europe into Madoff’s alleged $50 billion scam. It is now under the supervision of a state-appointed auditor. Kohn, 60, is a self- taught money manager who built her investment house by networking and creating the allure of joining an exclusive club similar to Madoff’s, according to interviews with more than 20 clients, former employees and acquaintances.
“In the end, it was just a money-collecting company for Madoff that presented itself as a staid bank,” said Edwin Fischer, a professor of finance at the University of Graz in southern Austria. “The chart was just going up and up and people stopped being critical about the performance.”
Kohn boosted the bank’s credibility with backing from 25- percent owner UniCredit Bank Austria AG, the country’s biggest lender, and by recruiting “respected” former government ministers as supervisory board members, Fischer said.
And now Peru joins Venezuela and Antigua in the the rank of victims of Sir Allen Stanford who as yet remains in ‘hiding ‘ .
These kind of ‘capital ‘ crimes of people’s retirement and investment funds need to be ‘rewarded ‘ following conviction with ‘capital ‘ punishment and state confiscation of the perpetrator’s entire family assets to the first generation
More good news
ex cnn
The Dow Jones industrial average slumped to a more than 6-year low Thursday, as fears of a prolonged recession sent stock investors heading for the exits.
The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU)slid 88 points, or 1.6%, according to early tallies, closing at the lowest point since Oct. 9, 2002, the low of the last bear market. The Dow had dropped as low as 7,447.55 during the session.
Wall Street has struggled lately on worries that the U.S. government’s various plans to soften the recession won’t work in the face of an accelerating global slowdown.
“The government is doing everything and anything to right this ship, but the big liquidity players, the hedge funds and the mutual funds, are hoarding cash,” said Gary Hager, president at Integrated Wealth Management.
Comment – Hager is not being completely frank . It’s not just the hedge funds that ae hoarding -it’s also the banks and virtually every financial institution and large corporation
Nobody trusts the banks anymore and it’s high time Governments worldwide moved decisively to ‘nationalise ‘ these institutions at least on a temporary basis and until such time as new regulations can be developed and implemented to regulate what’s called the shadow banking sector !
Deflation / Inflation / Interest Rates
From Moneyweek today, about the UK economy..
Could quantitative easing herald the return of inflation?
Falling prices are a more immediate concern. “QE won’t eradicate the threat of deflation,” says Capital Economics. But deflation may not be a problem for long. A recession-induced mix of stalled house-building, widespread retail casualties and factory closures has cut output back hard. Too much fresh cash pumped into the economy would chase this reduced supply of goods, which could re-ignite price rises earlier than expected. Further, global prices are currently weak. But they won’t stay down forever, and with the plunging pound raising import costs, retailers will have to hike their selling prices to survive. An inflation spike would force the Bank to raise rates sharply – a QE U-turn.
http://www.moneyweek.com/news-and-charts/economics/what-is-quantitative-easing-42309.aspx
“messrs Madoff and Stanford…neo conservatives and their gang of investment theives”
You seemed to have missed my earlier point that Madoff and Stanford are not neo-cons but fully paid up Democrats.
As were the shysters in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the UAW who have bled the previously successful US auto industry dry.
Furthermore I’m fairly certain that Gordon Brown believes himself to be a socialist as did Bertie Ahern in the Irish Republic, two men who oversaw the catastrophes now inflicted on their respective nations, neither of whom would regard themselves as conservatives.
Try as you might GF you really can’t pin this mess on people who believe in the principle of small government and sound money. Conservatives ain’t to blame and we relish the chance to clear up the mess created by the money printers of big government.
HF
‘You seemed to have missed my earlier point that Madoff and Stanford are not neo-cons but fully paid up Democrats.’
Indeed . Democrats who also contributed to the Republican Party . Senator McCain being one of Mr Madoof’s more grateful recipients . Wise up HF Madoff was/is a financial con men who hedges his bets and who can read political outcomes better that you can drink a pint .
‘Try as you might GF you really can’t pin this mess on people who believe in the principle of small government and sound money’
I was’nt . Rather I was pinning the ‘blame ‘ on those who in theory said that’s what they were for (i.e small government and sound money ) but who in practice delivered instead the biggest ramp up of government expenditure and debt in the history of the USA . Their version of ‘small ‘ government was to give the neo con thieves of the financial services sector full rein to commit what can only be described as the pillage of the world’s financial system .
‘Conservatives ain’t to blame and we relish the chance to clear up the mess created by the money printers of big government.’
I’m sure the British people will be delighted to see the Conservatives do for the UK what Mr Bush has delivered for the USA these past 8 years .
Harry Flashman @ 01:16 PM:
Here’s another promising thread that has long since run its course.
Yet, Harry, your constant assertions do not convince. The notion that the likes of Madoff, Stanford, and their Irish pale imitators are all card-carrying liberals, bolshies and Rooseveltian New Dealers (or whatever) does not hold water.
Yesterday’s [London] Times would dearly, dearly love to prove just that damning connection. The best that the Murdoch gripe-machine could come up with was the finding that Stanford’s political donations were $706,600 to Democrats (confusingly identified as the red blob) and $189,300 to the Republicans (with equally-inaccurate blue) Now, I cannot conceive of why it was necessary to invert the two Party colours, can you possibly help here? The same report noted that:
Again, a curious ordering of precedence. I’m sure there must be a rational explanation somewhere.
OK: that’s accounted for some of Stanford’s largesse. However, consider this:
All to Democrats, Harry? All through the years of the GOP hegemony?
Equally, I suspect you misunderstand the nature of company PACs. My daughter, a UK
citizensubject and voter, who turns a well-buttered crust as a senior executive for a US corporation, was told how much she was expected to put to the firm’s PAC. It was not a request. It was an unwritten requirement of the status.Now, can we move on?
“Here’s another promising thread that has long since run its course.”
You’re right Malcolm, it usually does when you show up.
Mwah, mwah!