Kevin Myers wrote a piece in the Indo a few days back where he stated bluntly that a "major Irish bank will fail this year".
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/colum ... 20571.html
Now , although I recognise that Kevin is more than capable of somewhat extreme commentary, this largely ignored remark struck me as interesting.
Has Myers heard something? Has anyone else? Or is this just an hysterical off the cuff speculative comment?
He left out the bit about Dublin being hit by a meteorite on Boxing Day.
Why does this sound far fetched? If major banks in the USA(Bear Stearns)& UK(Northern Rock) can come close to failure, then why not here also??Originally Posted by Squire Allworthy
He left out the bit about Dublin being hit by a meteorite on Boxing Day.
Did you not read the whole article? It was like reading the Book of Revelation. The Bank part was only the start of it.Why does this sound far fetched? If major banks in the USA(Bear Stearns)& UK(Northern Rock) can come close to failure, then why not here also??He left out the bit about Dublin being hit by a meteorite on Boxing Day.
My comment was more about the standard of journalism than the possibility of a banking failure. Yes Banks may collapse but there again they may not. It wasn't exactly an in depth piece of journalism more reflections on a nightmare.
I'd put Myers's pessimistic analysis in the same boat with those optomistic people last year who said the Irish property market was different and our property prices would never go down. One's as far too pessimistic as the other was far too optomistic. Never one to trust M'yers's analysis on anything, his economic analysis reads more like a Nostradamus prophecy than a in-depth analyis of our financial state. At best, his prognostications should be taken with a pinch of salt.
A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves. (B. de Jouvenel)
Banking executives are already tyring to put the ************************t back in the Horse.
The Government have asked the banks to help them out with the economy by keeping the money flowing. The very same bankers would like to see interest rates eased and reserve ratios relaxed to get them out of trouble. The Government can no longer help them. It will all be blamed on external factors, namely the oil exporting nations, who will be blamed for selling us dear oil, collapsing economies of the west, selling the dollar, buying the euro ans generally driving up the price of gold, as well as cornering the worlds gold reserves.
The dogs in Dame Street know already what is going to fall, and Mr Myers is not the only one with the Story.
The speculation value has departed from all property assets. Hence no one will buy property in the expectation of it increasing in value. Neither will anyone lend to fund a purchase unless the loan to value ratio is very low. So low in fact that you would be better to hold the cast till we get to the end of the bear property market. anyone with cash will sit tight. Cash is king as long as you don't have more than €20,000 in the wrong accounts.
The only Bull in the market is in the Bull************************ Bulltalk
Fianna Fail will allow the Irish People, to me milked like Milch Cows, by the CIF through high house prices, rents, and land prices, at the expense of competitiveness,and quality of life. FF+CIF=1
[quote=Squire Allworthy]Did you not read the whole article? It was like reading the Book of Revelation. The Bank part was only the start of it.Why does this sound far fetched? If major banks in the USA(Bear Stearns)& UK(Northern Rock) can come close to failure, then why not here also??He left out the bit about Dublin being hit by a meteorite on Boxing Day.
Yes, I read the article(slightly over-hyped) But that is his job, he is a columnist, you don't have to believe everthing he writes. The part about the bank failure has become lost in the whole article because he is going around like 'henny penny' there. It is only a view about what might happen in the future. Winston Churchill had a view about Hitler in the 1930s, and he was regarded as a crank by the British Establishment. Do you think the idea of an Irish bank failure is totally off the wall? I mean it sounds crazy, but anything is possible in the future. I don't think too many mainstream economists were predicting a recession at the start of the year.
Have I ever said there is no possibility that a Bank will collapse? Over a year ago I was a lot more worried than I am now. I think it is less likely as time passes but wouldn't be over confident, another 6 months and we should be in a better position to gauge it. I have very little that is good to say about Banks and their policies. Their lending created the bubble. What they did was utterly stupid, and if they just looked to Japan they would have seen an example of what can go wrong. Once the average house costs more than the average person can reasonably afford you are entering twilight zone economics. I was told that property bubble couldn't damage our economy, that we were different, that Japan had protectionist trading policies, that Japanese problem was due to their saving (yes their saving), that mortgages were more affordable due to low interest rates. etc etc It was like visiting a mad house. I warned people to get out, not to invest, would they listen NO. Greed pure greed. The sensible got out the stupid and greedy will take a hit. Survival of the fittest. Unfortunately if Banks start to fold it could take a lot of sound people down with them.
Myers, among other things in that article, predicts that an Islamist Pakistan will nuke Bombay and New Dehli .
Given his predelictions when on active (journalistic) service in Belfast, I reckon he was screwing Nostradamus's wife last weekend.
There are times when you are simply required to be impolite. There are times when condescension is called for!
- Aaron Sorkin writing as President Bartlet to Obama, NYT 21/09/2008
You can't build a smart economy based on dumb decisions.
- Richard Bruton 18/12/2008
If the "knowledge" as regards which bank willfail is so widely held, then how come the share price of all of the banks has fallen by a more or less equal amount since their peak in Spring 2007?
Or do the runnings curs of capitalism who populate the Irish Stock Exchange not know the Dame Street dogs around the corner?
There are times when you are simply required to be impolite. There are times when condescension is called for!
- Aaron Sorkin writing as President Bartlet to Obama, NYT 21/09/2008
You can't build a smart economy based on dumb decisions.
- Richard Bruton 18/12/2008
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