ECB approves NAMA plan, but at market value for assets?

[Raketemensch]

You ever seen the enron documentary. there were hundreds of companies(non-existant) set up in order to keep the pretence of solvency going so that the big banks would lend even more money in order to fill the ever growing black hole. just because it is possible to have multiple companies set up that doesn't mean it is right and that is the point re the developers. they have set up all these companies to avoid taxes, cause confusion and to avoid having to downgrade their personal wealth when the pyramid scheme that was the irish property 'market' collapsed. As for your point about personal v corporate Imo that argument should be thrown out when dealing with the gangsters that destroyed the economy of this country. everyone else has to wear the hairshirt while Carroll and his ilk still live the high life-my arse. they are as bankrupt as their 'corporate empires' and should be treated as such.

Yeah, it's a great movie, they set up multiple companies to hide debt in so that the main corporation could show a profit.

If Enron had happened here do you think any would have gone to jail?

[Dreaded_Estate]

So crazy that the ECB is going to give him the money to do it anyway. How unlikely is that?

The ECB is agreeing to allow the bonds to be repo'd just like it allows every other government bond to repo'd. They still have to be repaid so to say the ECB is "giving him money" is a gross overstatement of what they are doing.

[iartaoiseach]

Yeah, it's a great movie, they set up multiple companies to hide debt in so that the main corporation could show a profit.

If Enron had happened here do you think any would have gone to jail?

fat chance. they'd probably be paid good money to help FF out of their current mess. It's a blessing they aren't irish. that said who is to know whether there isn't an irish version somewhere waiting to blow us out of the water.

[McDave]

For a European bureaucracy to trash such a central part of a government's strategy must be unprecedented. The overwhelming number of economists who expressed an opinion are against the long-term value criteria, as are all the opposition and now the ECB. I don't why the ECB are against nationalisation if it was temporary. It worked in Sweden and with the right safeguards would work here. I can only think they believe our government is too corrupt to make it work. If the true state of the loan book was revealed they would probably disagree with the government on nationalisation too.

Just goes to show what we're considered to capable of when left to our own devices!

IMO, the objective frames of reference we are exposed to in the EU are probably the best reasons to be in the Union, and, if I may say so, to stay fully committed to the levels of integration envisaged in Lisbon.