Comments on: NAMA money pit could be our economic Stalingrad

By: The end of the Celtic Tiger « thenextwave

The end of the Celtic Tiger « thenextwave — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 11:55:17 +0000

[...] McWilliams, for his part, wondered why the government wanted to prop up banks or developers when they could buy cheap land from them [...]

By: tirnanog33

tirnanog33 — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 07:13:46 +0000

instead of taxing the poor ,the sick, and the handicapped.
I wonder how much Fianna Fail would raise by imposing a modest “wealth tax” on everybody with assets?
they have such a tax here in Spain. Also there are modest-but not insubstantial- death duties to be paid by all who have modest wealth/assets etc.
Why should wealthy landowners/farmers-for example- transfer their wealth intact to their heirs?
How much money would be raised by a third benchmarking exercise reducing all civil service wages and index linked wages by a modest 20%.?

By: Dilly

Dilly — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 12:32:07 +0000

I wouldnt trust him to sit the right way round on a toilet. He did not have much to do when he was in power, as Fianna Fail had already forced entire generations of Irish people to emigrate.

By: Malcolm McClure

Malcolm McClure — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 09:34:18 +0000

In a few years time Lenihan will be seen as the Neville Chamberlain of Irish politics. Well-meaning but naîve, waving a piece of paper. “Mr ECB says NAMA means prosperity in our time.”
We can’t be neutral in the coming World Economic War. Better choose our friends more carefully than we did in in WW II.

By: tirnanog33

tirnanog33 — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 23:29:08 +0000

Malcolm you are absolutely correct.As no administration (this one or the next one) will have the guts to take the necessary steps you outline; only the IMF can do it.
We will have major discord and possibly civil strife and strikes etc. but at the end of the day the IMF will rule, if given the opportunity to enforce sanity.
The present hiatus will see things muddle along for a few years at the expense of trebling the national debt and then the IMF will have to come in anyway! Madness.

By: Optimistix

Optimistix — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 16:54:58 +0000

Wave, you are exactly right. We are having the wrong debate about Nama it should be how do we quickly restore our competitiveness and will Nama do this and the answer is No. NAMA is just the excuse to go back to the old world of high property, high rents and large mortgages. This will all feed into higher business costs which is exactly what we dont need to get Ireland back to work. We need to kill Nama. Let the banks fail and take advantage of the new low cost opportunities that will flow. This is really an incredible chance for us to really reduce our costs. So lets have the real debate.

By: wills

wills — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 16:53:00 +0000

Tim , also,… whatever argument the NAMA loony tunes put forward on NAMA going forward the
one fact they can never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever assert is……………………………..
the price the toxic ‘assets’ will be in the future,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
So, therefore case closed.

*unless of course these narcissist neo fascist money grabbing cultists can see into the future from atop their golden perches.

By: paddythepig

paddythepig — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 16:45:37 +0000

Tim, I agree with you. We are not so far apart after all.

Paddy

By: Tim

Tim — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 16:43:27 +0000

wills, Politicians voting on #NAMA who own bank shares:

http://www.irish-lawyer.com/

(scroll down the page a little to read the names).

By: Tim

Tim — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 16:11:05 +0000

wills, excellent links today, thank you. One thing about Kerrigan today, though: He appears to have forgotten that we have had a Good Bank all along, with branches all over the country; he is not alone in this mistake; I have read it and heard it repeated all over the media “We should create a good bank and let the bad ones fail…….”

It is called “An Post Bank”.

If every single private sector bank in the country went bust as a result of their own gambling, we would still have An Post, as well as all the Credit Unions – again with branches all over the country.

Now, NAMA will force us to buy something we do not want to buy, at a price we have not been told, though we have been told that the price is more than the thing is worth!

If my eight year old daughter spent money that way, I would tell her she was foolish with her money.

What will we buy to place in NAMA? “Assets”, they say; What kind of assets? “Underperforming assets”, they say; but underperforming assets are loans that are not being repaid, like bad debts, right? “Yes”, they say; So, they’re really liabilities, then, not assets at all? “No”, they say.

If these “assets” were second-hand cars, what kind would they be? Broken-down bangers that wont drive, that’s what.

Would anyone buy one of those?

No choice: we are being FORCED to buy just such an item, with NAMA.