Fiscal Treaty Megathread [Poll Reset]

dvpower · 04-06-2012 12:28am

donegal_road wrote: »

when the ESM treaty is passed in the next couple of weeks, our first payment to the ESM will be in July, and will be for €254 million, and again in October for the same amount. We have to pay €11 billion towards the ESM now that we have signed up for it... this is in on-top of our bank debt... it is akin to a patient of life support being asked to donate blood

jbyrne10 wrote: »

Hi donegal_road,

I could'nt have put it better myself.
John

We don't have to pay 11bn into the ESM.

darkhorse · 04-06-2012 2:41am

dvpower wrote: »

We don't have to pay 11bn into the ESM.

Do we not have to contribute anything at all. Is it just the rest of the countries that have put money into the esm pot.

Scofflaw · 04-06-2012 10:37am

Bambi wrote: »

lol, superb hedging of a question there, what's wrong with my house, other than the gas company saying that it may blow up?

I mean, sure noted alarmist and eurosceptic Ollie Rehn says it may break up, but other than that its all tickety boo :
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/06/01/bloomberg_articlesM4XK876TTDS001-M4XSI.DTL

Phase two argument, inability to counter so claim the poster has no better solution. George Soros, another noted radical, has some suggestions but unfortunately to accept his premise you'd have to accept that the european strategy since maastricht was fundamentally flawed, so that's off the table I guess. Much less painful to blame it on decentralisation in Ireland etc

Yes, maybe this crisis can railroad a sceptical european public into ceding executive authority to an entity that doesn't answer to them, "not necessarily a bad thing". If the EU hadn't created the monster in first place then we wouldn't need silver bullets. And now the monster is meant to scare us into doing what it's creators wanted us to do all along? Ollie Rehn cackles from the castle laboratory:

“We’re either headed for a deterioration of the euro area or a gradual strengthening of the European Union.”

I don't even have to reach for my tin hat to see the conspiracy theory there buddy.

Who said anything about "the root of all evils"? Stock phrases don't cut it buddy, remember? It's not the root of all evils, its the mother of all f**k ups,

Buddily,
Bambi

Amazingly, you didn't answer a single thing there. Pure waving and blustering.

impressed,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw · 04-06-2012 10:40am

Deleted User wrote: »

Put simply Sterling has one leader and one direction for one country with a common fiscal policy.

The Euro has 15 countries each pushing it in different direction via different fiscal policies. http://www.organizedchaoscomic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/Rowers-US-vs-Japan-small1-300x265.jpg

These different policies caused all the capital to shift from many of the weaker countries to one country, causing an enormous imbalance!

http://www.wrecksite.eu/img/wrecks/neretva_1992.jpg

OK, better than Bambi, but....capital imbalances? OK, since when, exactly?

cordially,
Scofflaw

donegal_road · 04-06-2012 10:59am

dvpower wrote: »

We don't have to pay 11bn into the ESM.

I know its supposed to be a worst case scenario that we put in 11 billion, and it is said that it will be unlikely that we will have to, but the fact that we are are being asked to contribute to a fund to bail out Spain and Italy considering our present circumstance is a little hard to swallow.

dvpower · 04-06-2012 11:27am

jbyrne10 wrote: »

Do we not have to contribute anything at all. Is it just the rest of the countries that have put money into the esm pot.

We do have to make an upfront contribution, but its 1.27bn (over a number of years), not 11bn.

donegal_road wrote: »

I know its supposed to be a worst case scenario that we put in 11 billion, and it is said that it will be unlikely that we will have to, but the fact that we are are being asked to contribute to a fund to bail out Spain and Italy considering our present circumstance is a little hard to swallow.

In this worst case scenario where the entire fund has to be called upon and is defaulted on, we are more likely to be in the group of defaulting countries.

I'm sure it would be a little hard to swallow for the EFSM/EFSF countries if we, as a recipient of those funds, had refused to sign up to the replacement fund.

04-06-2012 1:05pm

Scofflaw wrote: »

OK, better than Bambi, but....capital imbalances? OK, since when, exactly?

cordially,
Scofflaw

Capital imbalance in a common currency = bound to fail!

The proof is in the news!

donegal_road · 04-06-2012 2:15pm

dvpower wrote: »

We do have to make an upfront contribution, but its 1.27bn (over a number of years), not 11bn.

In this worst case scenario where the entire fund has to be called upon and is defaulted on, we are more likely to be in the group of defaulting countries.

I'm sure it would be a little hard to swallow for the EFSM/EFSF countries if we, as a recipient of those funds, had refused to sign up to the replacement fund.

then why were there respected economists calling for a no vote?

Dave! · 04-06-2012 2:22pm

There were respected economists calling for a Yes vote too...

dvpower · 04-06-2012 2:54pm

donegal_road wrote: »

then why were there respected economists calling for a no vote?

What am I? Your research assistant?

donegal_road · 04-06-2012 3:14pm

Dave! wrote: »

There were respected economists calling for a Yes vote too...

How many of these leading economists were warning about the the property bubble? How many of them said that NAMA would produce a profit? How many of them said there would be a soft landing? How many of them said Lisbon would be good for the economy and since then unemployment has soared. Indecon were hired by the government to encourage a 'yes' vote so they can secure their own over-paid jobs with more bailout money. They and were up to their necks in almost every dodgy decision made by FF government.. now they are back in business working for FG... (and everyone thought they were voting for change!).

By the way, a previous Indecon survey on the Lisbon Treaty revealed that

over 90% of the economists surveyed were of the view that Ireland’s best interests would be secured by a ‘Yes’ vote.

by the way, that article doesn't mention one of these economists by name, and finally... what are EMS funds?

the inability to access EMS Funds if Ireland voted ‘No’.

Dave! · 04-06-2012 3:30pm

For you

I dunno what the relevance of your Lisbon Treaty quote is

I presume EMS is a typo, should be ESM funds... Talk to the Business Post about it if you like

Typo in news article => argument invalid!

Most of the business lobby groups (representing the people who are going to grow the economy, if it's going to grow at all) were urging a Yes vote. IBEC, American Chamber of Commerce, ISME, Small Firms Assocation........

donegal_road · 04-06-2012 4:25pm

my reference to Lisbon is because a previous Indecon "report" in 2009 came to the same conclusion as their survey on the Fiscal treaty... I wonder is it because they surveyed the exact same group of 'leading economists'?

The potential significance of the Irish vote on the Lisbon Treaty for Irish
economic prospects is an aspect on which the vast majority of the leading
academic and research economists held strong views and this is reflected
in the fact that over 90% of the economists surveyed were of the view that
Ireland’s best interests would be secured by a ‘Yes’ vote.

I wanted to vote yes, and thought I had made my mind up when Stephen Donnelly stated that he was voting yes so Ireland could access the ESM fund if it needed to (on the live broadcast from Wiclow that evening). But when people like Constantine Gurdgiev, David McWilliams and Nobel prize winner Paul Krugman are advocating no, then I felt I should sit up and take notice, and if this makes me a tin-foil-hat-wearing conspiracy theorist.. then thats ok I suppose.

Dave! · 04-06-2012 4:52pm

I decided that it's the people that actually create jobs in the country who's opinion I care about on this, and they were overwhelmingly in support of the treaty.

See my post above regarding Paul Krugman, he's opposed to austerity as a policy (which is fair enough), hence why he doesn't think we should have voted Yes. He acknowledges that nobody else will lend to us though, so he seemingly accepts that the best case scenario in the event that we need another bailout (which we will) is that Europe gives us money anyway. In that event we'll surely be paying a higher interest rate though, which would mean more austere budgets.

If Europe don't give us the money (since we would have told them to f*ck themselves), then we get it from........?

And companies thinking about investing in Ireland would be reassured by this because.........?

Krugman doesn't seem to give any advantage to voting No, he appears to just see it as striking a blow against austerity. Something tells me Ireland rejecting the treaty would not all of a sudden make Angela Merkel stop and say "Oh, we should grow our way out of recession! Thanks Ireland!"

Thankfully common sense won out in the end, so we can put pressure on our government to start arguing for a growth agenda and a better deal on the banks, safe in the knowledge that we've got access to emergency funding should we need it, and having reassured potential investors that we're moving along with Europe either way.

donegal_road · 04-06-2012 6:02pm

I could post article after article by McWilliams, and Gurdgiev but it hardly matters now. In a nutshell they were both arguing against borrowing to get out of debt, and rather than it being an act of kicking the can, McWilliams compared it to rolling a snowball down a hill. It will get to a point approx 2014 when we no longer will be able to pay interest on loans plus bondholder debt so might as well tackle the problem now, tell the ECB that we will be defaulting, and try and negotiate with them now.

Yesterday's Krugman article is slightly more different in tone to the earlier RTE interview:

Ireland voted for a ‘bad idea’ – and euro could collapse in two years

Dave! · 04-06-2012 6:12pm

I listened to the interview, it gives more insight than the article into his thoughts on voting Yes/No.

No need to appeal to authority, just make your own points if you want to.

You may be right that we should tackle the inevitable (if it is indeed inevitable) now, but that's not necessarily what a No vote would provoke. The government has no interest in doing something as radical as that. They'll just try to keep up with the rest of Europe, without the benefits the treaty provides.

I'm not prepared to push the country away from Europe and have us face into an extremely uncertain and precarious few years on our own. The Euro may well be a failed project, but if it does fail then it's going to be carnage either way. I'd rather we take our chances within the structures and framework that the EU puts in place.

squod · 04-06-2012 6:32pm

Dave! wrote: »

I decided that it's the people that actually create jobs in the country who's opinion I care about on this, and they were overwhelmingly in support of the treaty.

Some of those people are off their little heads, you do know that right?

K-9 · 04-06-2012 11:23pm

squod wrote: »

Some of those people are off their little heads, you do know that right?

And some of the ones advocating No....................., it's hardly a measure of anything.

People should make their own mind up on things, not because a politician of whatever party like FG/FF are for something, or SF against it, Employers for it or Unions against, and vice versa. Seems a slightly controversial opinion to have these days as regards politics.

Censorship · 05-06-2012 4:11am

It was rigged, take your heads out of sand. You have no say in the EU, none....stop pretending.

Happyman42 · 05-06-2012 9:16am

So there is another oppurtunity squandered because we where so busy being the good boys and girls of Europe.
Had the good boys and girls said No, the agenda would have been different this morning. Sometimes rebellion is the right way.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0605/breaking3.html

05-06-2012 9:47am

Happyman42 wrote: »

So there is another oppurtunity squandered because we where so busy being the good boys and girls of Europe.
Had the good boys and girls said No, the agenda would have been different this morning. Sometimes rebellion is the right way.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0605/breaking3.html

Ireland is a bad poker player, showed the cards too early while knowing that our cards were better than many of the other players!

Stark · 05-06-2012 9:53am

If Enda had any spine, he'd refuse to proceed with ratification until they agreed to negotiate.

05-06-2012 9:55am

Stark wrote: »

If Enda had any spine, he'd refuse to proceed with ratification until they agreed to negotiate.

Referendum says sign!

Happyman42 · 05-06-2012 9:56am

Stark wrote: »

If Enda had any spine, he'd refuse to proceed with ratification until they agreed to negotiate.

Enda represents the Irish electorate....they have no spine, they chose the way forward.

Chucky the tree · 05-06-2012 10:08am

Stark wrote: »

If Enda had any spine, he'd refuse to proceed with ratification until they agreed to negotiate.

And when EU says no, then what? I mean it's not the EU need us to push ahead with it.

Scofflaw · 05-06-2012 10:21am

Happyman42 wrote: »

So there is another oppurtunity squandered because we where so busy being the good boys and girls of Europe.
Had the good boys and girls said No, the agenda would have been different this morning. Sometimes rebellion is the right way.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0605/breaking3.html

Or we could, more than likely, be in exactly the same position, with you blaming the incompetence of Enda Kenny and the intransigence of the Germans instead.

cordially,
Scofflaw

05-06-2012 10:32am

Scofflaw wrote: »

Or we could, more than likely, be in exactly the same position, with you blaming the incompetence of Enda Kenny and the intransigence of the Germans instead.

cordially,
Scofflaw

He would have at least been able to arrive at the table with a mandate to negotiate hard!

Happyman42 · 05-06-2012 11:31am

Scofflaw wrote: »

Or we could, more than likely, be in exactly the same position, with you blaming the incompetence of Enda Kenny and the intransigence of the Germans instead.

cordially,
Scofflaw

While I respect your economic expertise it is patently obvious that 'we' are waiting for scraps from the table instead of actually bargaining.

Scofflaw · 05-06-2012 12:02pm

Deleted User wrote:

He would have at least been able to arrive at the table with a mandate to negotiate hard!

Happyman42 wrote: »

While I respect your economic expertise it is patently obvious that 'we' are waiting for scraps from the table instead of actually bargaining.

I doubt that the government isn't negotiating, and negotiating as hard as it sees as possible. It's a belief statement to claim that a No would have either given the government a greater mandate (how?) or greater bargaining power - it's been made fairly clear that the Irish vote wasn't going to be linked to a deal on bank debt, and that works either way. The rest of Europe is neither going to give us sweeties for being good, nor tremble in fear before our mighty non-vetoing refusal.

The only way we can get a deal on bank debt is to find ways in which a bank deal is a good outcome for everyone. And that's a very tough proposition, because we're basically looking for other countries to take the hit for our banks. I'd like to see that happen, but there's no obvious reason why it should - our belief that we "took one for the team" is rather overdone, considering that the blow we took was of our own government's making and one our government took on largely off their own bat for their own reasons, while the other countries can also claim the same distinction.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Happyman42 · 05-06-2012 12:14pm

Scofflaw wrote: »

one our government took on largely off their own bat for their own reasons, while the other countries can also claim the same distinction.

cordially,
Scofflaw

We were told in no uncertain terms 'not to allow a European bank' to go down. Hardly our 'own' decision.

Fiscal Treaty Megathread [Poll Reset]

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