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Ireland has missed a glorious chance on Greece

Johnny Fallon on July 1, 2015, 9:52 am

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As the Greek tragedy rumbles on France has said it will keep up efforts to reach a deal. France has also maintained that the biggest critics of Greece are the other smaller countries. This brings Ireland into the spotlight. Has the government really been politically clever in how it has handled the Greek crisis? Ireland has a strong reputation in Europe. At several junctures in the history of the EU it is Ireland that has helped to bring people around …

Argentinian naval vessel held by Ghanaian court over bond default…

Mick Fealty on October 21, 2012, 3:00 pm

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There’s a couple of things worth noting about economics this weekend, but since I’m short of time, I’m starting with the simplest and possibly the least worthy of note: …the ARA Libertad, a navy training ship seized in Africa nearly three weeks ago as collateral for unpaid bonds dating from the South American nation’s economic crisis a decade ago. Hmmmm, yep. Ten years ago and Argentina’s default is still haunting even their armed services because the bondholders haven’t gone away …

Ireland and default again

Mack on March 17, 2011, 12:53 am

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Yves Smith has a thought provoking article on her Naked Capitalism blog that I’ve only just got around to reading. It includes a useful, if cyncial, analysis of the raison d’être of the current stress tests / banking investigation being undertaken by BlackRock. Earth to base, this is a garbage in, garbage out exercise You can’t value loans against illiquid real estate by sitting around playing with models. Our Swedish Lex, who worked on the Swedish bad debt liquidation exercise, …

Ireland and the ECB: “We have political power and we should use it”

Mick Fealty on February 15, 2011, 8:47 am

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Brian Lucey in the Irish Times: I RECENTLY had coffee with a former colleague who is now working in the financial services industry in Germany. He was at pains to stress that the general tenor of the German press, even among the tabloids, was that although Ireland had been stupid, feckless, and perhaps somewhat arrogant, it was in general a well-run European country that was at least trying, painfully, to get out of the hole it had in part dug …

An exploding plastic inevitable: peel slowly and see.

John Ó Néill on February 9, 2011, 3:18 pm

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Last week I’d stopped short of describing Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour as economic illiterates, but I’m beginning to think even that would have been overly generous now. The front end of the multi-media happening that is the election campaign is currently dominated by rows over 2, 3 and 5-way debates (depending on who is invited and who turns up). Having watched the first (and given that, as a genre it doesn’t tend to get any better), it looks like they are …

Ireland can’t afford to bail out European banks

Mack on November 30, 2010, 2:41 pm

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I think this point is worth highlighting more clearly. Below – Simon Johnson ex-CEO of the IMF – on who is owed money by the Irish banks German banks are owed $139 billion, which is 4.2 percent of German G.D.P. British banks are owed $131 billion, or about 5 percent of Britain’s G.D.P. French banks are owed $43.5 billion, which is approaching 2 percent of French G.D.P. But the eye-catching numbers are for Belgium, which is owed $29 billion – …

Global Crisis: Write-off or inflate debt away says Steve Keen

Mack on July 14, 2010, 11:24 pm

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Aussie economist Steve Keen, host of the excellent Debt Deflation blog, has long argued that our current – record high – debt-to-gdp ratios are the real cause of the crisis. As the debt is still there, the crisis is still here. He offers a realistic assessment of our options – Having got ourselves into a debt-induced economic crisis, the only permanent way out is to reduce the debt–either directly by abolishing large slabs of it, or indirectly by inflating it …

Euro Crisis: Greece restructuring it’s debts

Mack on July 8, 2010, 11:28 am

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Fancy word for default. Spotted by John Dizard in the FT, and neatly summarised by Yves Smith on Naked Capitalism below. Greece is imposing (at least) a 19% haircut on holders of state hospital bonds. This hasn’t yet gotten the attention it merits because it’s bonds issued by particular government bodies (in this case, the Greek state hospital system) and the investors aren’t big Eurobanks but suppliers. Old outstanding coupon bonds are being replaced with zero coupon bonds. The relevant …

Then and now – Ireland & The Argentine Economic Crisis

Mack on April 24, 2010, 11:51 pm

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Argentina entered recession in 1999 and defaulted on it’s public debt in 2001. According to Wikipedia In the meantime, government spending continued to be high and corruption was rampant. Argentina’s public debt grew enormously during the 1990s, and the country showed no true signs of being able to pay it . Enormously eh? It hit the heady heights of.. Ratio of debt to GDP grows to 41% in 1998, then 47% in 1999. Ratio of debt to GDP grows to …