Irish Banks Capture Govt at Taxpayers Expense

[old timer]

for all readers of ' An Unrepentant Communist' are some points relevant to Ireland's current Banking crisis and Finance Minister Lenihan's proposed NAMA "bad bank" scheme which are excerpted from an article by Willem Buiter, Professor of European Political Economy, London School of Economics. The full article, dated 8th April, titled "The green shoots are weeds growing through the rubble of the ruins of the global economy", read more on
"AN UNREPENTANT COMMUNIST....."

Its a powerful and irrefutable piece of analysis which sadly I fear, captures perfectly the situation we find ourselves now in, here in Ireland...a must read for all those interested in the current situation post the 'emergency budget' and the creation of 'NAMA'...

[Cael]

for all readers of ' An Unrepentant Communist' are some points relevant to Ireland's current Banking crisis and Finance Minister Lenihan's proposed NAMA "bad bank" scheme which are excerpted from an article by Willem Buiter, Professor of European Political Economy, London School of Economics. The full article, dated 8th April, titled "The green shoots are weeds growing through the rubble of the ruins of the global economy", read more on
"AN UNREPENTANT COMMUNIST....."

Its a powerful and irrefutable piece of analysis which sadly I fear, captures perfectly the situation we find ourselves now in, here in Ireland...a must read for all those interested in the current situation post the 'emergency budget' and the creation of 'NAMA'...

Very true, but in Ireland's particular case, you have to realise that the banks are just a capital collecting machine for the landed elite. We saw that Sean Quinn owned 25% of Anglo-Irish. There is also a very grey area between owing a bank 100 million, and being, in effect, a principal owner of that bank. When a major construction project is put together, its not simply a question of the bank simply lending the money to the developer. To a great extent the developer acts as a manager for the project, which is actually being carried out by the bank. The developer and the bank (or banks, if the project is very large) become one and the same entity. So all this stuff about the banks being tough on the developers is just cosmetics for the gullible public (or at least they hope we remain stupid), and this new bad bank wont be any more tough on developers either.